Sándor Márai / The dead poet is still working hard

 

Sándor Márai

The dead poet is still working hard

Sándor Márai: I wanted to remain silent

This newly discovered manuscript by Márai evokes historical events that sealed the destiny of the bourgeoisie and of Hungary, as well as personal tragedies and the writer's transition from a fashionable journalist to a writer who, on account of being faithful to his principles, took on a life of endless solitude and lack of recognition.

Zsófia Szilágyi
17th August, 2013

“The dead poet is still working hard, I would say: he seems to be at the top of his powers. Life and death are nothing. Only the creative spirit and the opus are what matters. If I wasn’t paying attention, I would finish this review by saying that we can expect great works from him.” This reviewer has already made use of these sentences by Márai more than once (Márai wrote them apropos of Kosztolányi’s posthumously published works) as they come in handy for anyone who deals with manuscripts of dead authors. It is the rarest case that one finds whole coherent, finished masterpieces in the estate of a writer (although philologists tend to daydream about such exceptional cases). But there is a good chance that one finds in the loft, in boxes, or eventually receives from the heirs variations, half-finished pieces, interesting pages that are worth publishing with some explanation.

Sándor Márai / Portraits of a Marriage / Review

 

Class and love

Sándor Márai: Portraits of a Marriage

More than just three "Portraits of a Marriage", as promised by the title, Márai's novel, now translated into English, paints three portraits of a society, a class, and an era in Hungary—from the interwar years to the aftermath of World War II and the beginning of the Communist era.

Ágnes Orzóy
25th March, 2011

Portraits of a Marriage is the English title given by the translator, George Szirtes, to a book that is in fact two books: Az igazi [The Real One] was published in Hungary in 1941, whereas Judit… és az utóhang [Judit… and the afterword] was written in emigration and published in 1980.

Sándor Márai / The Unabridged Diary, 1952-53 / The freedom of silence

 

Sándor Márai

The freedom of silence

Sándor Márai: The Unabridged Diary, 1952-53

After three and a half years spent as an expatriate in Italy, Márai decided to relocate to New York along with his wife and their adopted son. The decision was extremely painful and one which, in all probability, determined the remaining 37 years of his life.

Zoltán András Bán
2nd July, 2010

Whatever one might think about Sándor Márai’s achievement as a writer, probably no one would deny that he was the most courageous Hungarian author in the 20th century. Or should this adjective jar on anyone’s ear, we might at least say that he took the most risk. Sacrificing his entire status as a successful writer in his own country, in 1948 he decided to emigrate from a country which was increasingly overcome by bolshevism. It had become a place where, he claimed, after the freedom of speech even the freedom of silence was lost. Márai was a practiced migrant – aged 19 he had already gone to Germany, moved on to Paris and returned to Budapest only after 8 years. This, however, was part of a consciously organised educational period, a succession of adventures undertaken voluntarily and willingly, indeed, with great joy. This extraordinary experience, which nothing else could have granted, helped the slow unfolding of his career as a prose writer. He was convinced that he could only thrive in Hungary, inside, or not far from, his native linguistic milieu.

Sándor Marái / Memory of Hungry / The treason of an implacable moralist

The treason of an implacable moralist

Sándor Márai: Memoir of Hungary

Márai’s oeuvre was shaken out of its coma after 1989, when his works were first published in Hungary, then later went on to reach international success. By leaving Hungary in 1948, he made a decision that proved to be fateful from the point of view of his oeuvre’s future in his native land; at the same time, it was a natural extension of an exile intended to be a symbolically powerful, moral reminder. 

Zoltán András Bán
6 October 2008

In contrast to the general air of acceptance and success surrounding Sándor Márai’s literary works in Western Europe, the literary world in Hungary remains unequivocally divided in its opinion of Sándor Márai’s oeuvre. Outside of Hungary, Márai is first and foremost recognized as a great writer of fiction whose novels were released one after another in all major languages following the enormous success his novel, Embers, attained in Italy. In his homeland, however, Márai is more commonly praised for his works that bear a closer resemblance to non-fiction. Every credible literary critic in Hungary, for example, agrees that Márai’s Confessions of a Citizen, a two-volume memoir originally published in the 1930’s, is his most significant work. At the same time, many others find his Diary—begun in 1943 and regularly kept by the author, who allowed a heavily edited version of his personal diaries to be published first in Hungary, then abroad following his immigration—to be equal in ranking.  (A few years ago Helikon Publishers in Hungary began to release the complete edition of Márai’s Diary, compiled according to the existing manuscript.)  Not surprisingly, Memoir of Hungary—in many respects a continuation of Confession of a Citizen—is also numbered amongst Sándor Márai’s best works.