Identity

　　『尚．馬克做了一個夢：他很擔心香黛兒，他到處找她，他在街上跑來跑去，終於，他看見她，她的背影，她往前走，越走越遠。他追著她跑，喊她的名字。只差幾步而已，她轉過頭來，這下尚．馬克被攝住了，在他面前的是另一張臉，一張陌生的、讓人不舒服的臉。然而這不是別人，是香黛兒，是他的香黛兒，他很確定，可是他的香黛兒卻有一張陌生人的臉，這真讓人難受，非常非常的讓人難受。他抱住她，緊緊的把她抱在懷裡，以哽咽的聲音不斷的喚著：「香黛兒，我的小香黛兒，我的小香黛兒！」好像他想藉著一再覆述這些話，把她那張丟失了的臉、丟失了的身分，注入這張變形的臉裡面去……』

　　(本書中文版由皇冠出版)

　　Sometimes - perhaps only for an instant - we fail to recognise a companion; for a moment their identity ceases to exist, and thus we come to doubt our own. The effect is at its most acute in a couple where our existence is given meaning by our perception of a lover, and theirs of us.

　　With his astonishing skill at building on and out from the significant moment, Kundera has placed such a situation and the resulting wave of panic at the core of the novel. In a narrative as intense as it is brief, a moment of confusion sets in motion a complex chain of events which forces the reader to cross and recross the divide between fantasy and reality. Profound, sad and disquieting but above all a love story, Identity provides further proof of Kundera's astonishing gifts as a novelist.