Sándor Márai (1900-1989) is a Hungarian writer and journalist.

Biography

Sándor Márai (of its true name Sándor Grosschmied de Mára) was born in 1900 with Kassa, in Hungary (today Košice, in Slovakia). In its youth, Márai travels and lives with Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris and considers during a time to write in German. It is then one of the most prestigious signatures of Frankfurter Zeitung. It decides finally for its native tongue, Hungarian, and settles with Budapest in 1928. In the Thirties, it acquires a certain fame for its clear and realistic style. It is the first to write articles of criticism on works of Kafka. Several of its novels become true bestsellers. Severely criticized after the war as being a " bourgeois" author; by the philosopher György Lukacs at the time of the forced installation of the Communist regime, its new book is put at the rammer. Márai is constrained to be exiled in 1948. (It gives a summary of its years of its life in " Memories of Hongrie".) A certain time he lives in Italy, then he settles definitively in the United States. Its books will not be published any more in its native land until the fall of the Wall. Márai lives with San Diego, in California, where it continues to write in Hungarian. Its work including/understanding Romance, plays, poems and diaries are published by the Hungarian publishers in exile and return to Hungary under the coat. It is also translated into foreign languages without to meet success. After the death of his wife, Márai lives in an increasingly complete insulation and gives itself death to San Diego in 1989.

Largely forgotten out of the borders of Hungary, Márai was redécouvert in manner spectacular to the beginning of the year 1990 thanks to the interest of the editions Albin Michel, and published within the framework of the collection " Large Traductions" directed then by Ibolya Virag, the editor with whom one owes in France a great number of discovered as regards Hungarian literature. The French success of Márai drew the attention of the editors of the whole world. Its work from now on is translated into Italian, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, etc; she is now regarded as belonging to the European literary inheritance of the XXe century.

Works translated into French

• Revolted the (Zendülők, 1930) Albin Michel, 1992
• Conversation of Bolzano (Vendégjáték Bolzanóban, 1940) Albin Michel, 1992
• Confessions of a Middle-class man (Egy polgár vallomásai, 1934) Albin Michel, 1993
• the Embers (has gyertyák csonkig égnek, 1942) Albin Michel, 1995
• the Heritage of Esther (Eszter hagyatéka, 1939) Albin Michel, 2001
• Divorce in Buda (Válás Budán, 1935) Albin Michel, 2002
• a dog of character (Csutora, 1932) Albin Michel, 2003
• Memories of Hungary (Föld, föld! …, 1972) Albin Michel, 2004
• Peace in Ithaque! (Béke Ithakában, 1952) Book of Pocket 2005
• Metamorphoses of a marriage (Az igazi, Judit… be az utóhang) Albin Michel, 2006

Bonds

• Page of the Knopf editor, who publishes the novels of English Márai
• Extraits from the diaries of Márai, 1984-89 (in English)
• a blog devoted to Sándor Márai (in English)
• Critique of Embers (Embers) by International Writers Magazine (in English)

Zh-min-nan: Márai Sándor

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