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.
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.
