Later that year, the Paris Review asked Christian Salmon to interview Kundera about his experiences with novel writing.

Kundera describes the impact of writers such as Cervantes, Descartes, Balzac, James Joyce, and Tolstoy on the evolution of the novel in modern history.

Later, Kundera includes a section dedicated to his reflections on The Sleepwalkers, a novel by Hermann Broch that he viewed as especially influential to his own writing.

Professor Perry Meisel wrote that a "collection of five essays and two dialogues published over the last decade, The Art of the Novel recommends self-effacement as a precept of writing and dooms purveyors of dogma in either literature or criticism.

"[7] Ian Watt for the Los Angeles Times wrote "the mind behind the novels is essentially serious, and yet they are very funny, sometimes farcical.