In 1948, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized control of their country, university student and party member Ludvik Jahn began to exchange letters with his friend Marketa, who was away at summer camp.

When Marketa, also a party member, said that her camp had a “healthy atmosphere”, Ludvik responded with a postcard jocularly declaring, “A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity. Optimism is the opium of the people! Long live Trotsky!”

Marketa reported him to the higher authorities in the party. Ludvik was summoned for a hearing and asked to apologise. He refused. “But comrades,” Ludvik explained, “it was meant to be funny”.

That cut no ice. Ludvik was expelled from the university and was sent to do hard labour in the mines.

These are the contours of the debut novel of celebrated Czech novelist Milan Kundera. Although Kundera described The Joke as a love story, the novel is also an excursion on the absurdities of a humourless society under the grip of authoritarianism.

First published in 1967, all the editions of the book were rapidly sold out. The next year came the famous Prague Spring, when the secretary of the party attempted some liberalising reforms such as increasing the freedom of speech and abolishing censorship. These were short-lived as Soviet forces invaded Czechoslovakia,...