Memoir of Hungary
Sándor Márai left Hungary in 1948 and wrote this account of the years immediately before. It records the Soviet arrival, the siege of Budapest, and the steady closing of the space in which a writer could work, set down as it happened rather than reconstructed later. Márai’s novels were rediscovered in the 1990s, decades after he stopped being published in his own country.
Recommended by 1 Person
Anne Applebaum
Sándor Márai is one of the great Hungarian novelists. He was in Hungary during the war, and left in 1948. This book is about a neutral intellectual’s encounter with communism, and it records what he saw as it happened. Whereas Miłosz writes from the present looking back, trying to explain the past, Márai writes as if in the moment itself.
Interview · March 2012
As an Amazon Associate, bookstoread.org earns from qualifying purchases. Links to Amazon on this page may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Spotted an error on this page? Tell us and we will fix it.