The series of programmes will start in the afternoon with a biographical film about Márai, which will be followed by a documentary, entitled ?Confessions of a Citizen?, which examines Márai?s impact on Hungarian readers. A programme entitled ?Talking Memorial Houses? visits Márai?s birthplace Kosice as well as other places he lived and worked. This will be followed by a documentary focusing on the author?s memories of Italy. The programme ?Our World? will include a live broadcast from the Kosice theatre, where stage personalities will pay tribute to Márai?s memory. Duna TV?s cultural magazine Port will dedicate its evening edition to Márai and feature the makers of the film ?Embers?, the first adaptation of a Márai novel. The film itself will follow, at 8:00pm. After the film, Duna TV will air a roundtable discussion, entitled ?An Angel From Heaven?, which will analyse Márai?s connection to Hungary?s 1956 revolution.
Márai was born in Kassa, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1900. He rose to fame as one of the leading literary novelists in Hungary in the 1930s. Profoundly anti-fascist, he survived the Second World War, but persecution by the Communists drove him away from the country in 1948, first to Italy and then to the United States. Márai committed suicide in San Diego in 1989, never knowing about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the restoration of democracy to Central Europe. He is the author of over twenty books. ?Embers? was the first to be translated into English.
Source: port.hu, Penguin Books
