Synopsis
The film presents the astonishing life of the Hungarian novelist Sándor Márai (1900-1989), the reasons behind his autonomous, often uncompromising decisions, with the transformations of Central Europe and European history in the background.
Sándor Márai, born in 1900 in Kassa (today Kosice, Slovakia), spent the years of his youth in Berlin, Paris and London. Soon after his return to Hungary in the 1930s he became one of the most popular and outstanding writers of the country. He was a “bourgeois” to the core, a man of principles. After the end of WW II, not willing to co-operate with the Soviet occupies, he went to exile for the rest of his life, for 41 years. First he lived in Italy, then in New York and finally in California where he died lonely and forgotten in 1989.
The real miracle came 9 years after his self-willing death in San Diego: in 1998 his forgotten novel, Embers became an astonishing success in Italy. The critics placed Márai among Robert Musil, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann – the greatest writers of the century. The novel, similar to the unexpected and amazing success of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and Lampedusa’s The Leopard, led the best-seller charts for months. One year later, Piper Verlag published the novel in German – also with huge critical and sales success. By now more than one million copies were sold in Germany alone. Knopf of New York published Embers in English and achieved similar success.
The life of the author – reflecting the changes and turmoil of the twentieth century – is interesting in itself. However, even more interesting and thought provoking are his unique and unparalleled faith to the set of values and morale of the “old Europe”, as well as his incredible and extraordinary post-mortem success as the unlikely international best-seller author.
Sándor Márai, born in 1900 in Kassa (today Kosice, Slovakia), spent the years of his youth in Berlin, Paris and London. Soon after his return to Hungary in the 1930s he became one of the most popular and outstanding writers of the country. He was a “bourgeois” to the core, a man of principles. After the end of WW II, not willing to co-operate with the Soviet occupies, he went to exile for the rest of his life, for 41 years. First he lived in Italy, then in New York and finally in California where he died lonely and forgotten in 1989.
The real miracle came 9 years after his self-willing death in San Diego: in 1998 his forgotten novel, Embers became an astonishing success in Italy. The critics placed Márai among Robert Musil, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann – the greatest writers of the century. The novel, similar to the unexpected and amazing success of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and Lampedusa’s The Leopard, led the best-seller charts for months. One year later, Piper Verlag published the novel in German – also with huge critical and sales success. By now more than one million copies were sold in Germany alone. Knopf of New York published Embers in English and achieved similar success.
The life of the author – reflecting the changes and turmoil of the twentieth century – is interesting in itself. However, even more interesting and thought provoking are his unique and unparalleled faith to the set of values and morale of the “old Europe”, as well as his incredible and extraordinary post-mortem success as the unlikely international best-seller author.