WA171 Bilingual Books: Sándor Márai, Embers [Les Braises] - REMOTE

Friday, 8 May 2020

2:00pm - 3:30pm

Cost: Free for WICE members and €5 for guests

Originally published in 1942, Embers is set in the fading splendour of a vast Hungarian estate, providing Márai with a luscious tableau to explore the remains of a fin de siècle era and the fading wisdom of its heir. 

This exquisitely structured novel confronts life’s vagaries and lost dreams.  It explores the tight and twisted bonds of friendship.

Márai was a staunch anti-communist and at the time of his death in exile in the U.S. in 1989,  his work had been widely overlooked in both Hungary and abroad. His novels were republished, providing readers with work that some critics have compared to 20th-century European masters such as Thomas Mann and Joseph Roth.

‘[Embers] is as masterly and lovely a novel as one could ask for, evoking the memory of unspoken passions, the loss of illusions, the crumbling of an empire.’ The Washington Post.

‘Si certains vins se boivent après plusieurs années de cave, il est des livres – comme celui-ci - qu’on doit lire quand on a atteint un certain âge, pour en apprécier au mieux la subtile puissance et le poids du sens caché derrière les mots. Un bouquin incontournable, à lire absolument.’ Focus-litterature.

Registration opens Saturday 16 May