The handwriting of Ferenc Molnár on show at the exhibition entitled "Long Live the Playground". Photo: Gyula Czimbal (MTI)
The exhibition, entitled "Long Live the Playground", opens on October 11. It revisits all of the most important places in the novel - a coming of age story set in Budapest's District VIII - including the flat of its hero, Ernő Nemecsek, the Botanical Garden and the "Grund" or playground.
The exhibition also traces Ferenc Molnár's own childhood in search of his inspiration for the book. The displays are labeled in several foreign languages in addition to Hungarian.
On one wall is a map which shows the more than 40 countries in which The Boys of Paul Street has been published.
The exhibition runs until August 2008. During the course of the year, the Petőfi Literature Museum will organise several more events to mark the hundredth anniversary of The Boys of Paul Street.
Covers of international translations of The Boys of Paul Street
Ferenc Molnár was born in Budapest in 1878. He studied law in Geneva and became a newspaper writer in Budapest in 1897. His first play was performed in 1902, and he followed with another practically every year. All were performed in Budapest's Comedy Theatre, but many were also staged abroad. He wrote The Boys of Paul Street in 1907. The book was an enormous success and became perhaps the most popular work of Hungarian literature abroad.
Molnár was a correspondent during WWI, during which time he also wrote prose. Some of his most famous plays were written afterward, including The Swan, The Glass Shoe (1924), and The Play at the Castle (1926). In 1939, he left Hungary with his third wife Lili Darvas to escape the rampant anti-Semitism in the country. They fled first to Switzerland, then to the United States. After his emigration, he wrote only memoirs and letters. Molnár died in New York in the spring of 1952.
