Read more
Sándor Márai, one of Europe's outstanding novelists, creates a masterful and intensely moving account of the siege of Budapest; an atrocity witnessed by the author first-hand, that we see now through the eyes of a young woman.
It is the winter of 1944-5. The Germans, determined to impose their Final Solution, have occupied Hungary. The Russians surround the capital and a violent offensive between warring armies begins. As bombs fall from both sides, the remaining inhabitants, entrapped by violence, retreat to the depths of the city for refuge.
Among them is Elisabeth who hides along with many others in the confines of a huge cellar, hoping for her own safety and that of her father, a scientist who is a particular target of the fascist Arrow Cross assassins. She bears witness to the violent, moral disintegration of civilization that tests even the most compassionate and courageous.
Eventually, the door of the cellar is opened, but what will be her liberation?
About the author
Sándor Márai was born in Kassa, Hungary in 1900. He was an editor at the age of eighteen before moving to Berlin to study and become a journalist. He considered writing in German before choosing his native language when he returned to Hungary. He was the first critic to write reviews of the work of Franz Kafka. Márai, to his peril, was critical of the German army of occupation during the war. After the Communists took over in 1948 he left Hungary, going first to Italy and then to the United States. He died in California in 1989.
Len Rix is the translator of Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight and Magda Szabó's The Door; for which he won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. His translation of The Door was one of the New York Times ten best books of 2015. He was in 2021 awarded the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit for his translations.
Summary
Liberation was written in 1945 only a few months after the end of the siege of Budapest. The novel describes the horror of the end of the German occupation, the barbarity of the Fascistic Arrow Cross nationalist party and the eventual liberation of the people of the city by the Russian army.
Foreword
Liberation was written in 1945 only a few months after the end of the siege of Budapest. The novel describes the horror of the end of the German occupation, the barbarity of the Fascistic Arrow Cross nationalist party and the eventual liberation of the people of the city by the Russian army.
Report
'Sándor Márai is one of the great modern novelists, in the same league as Gabriel García Márquez' Craig Nova, Washington Post
