At the turn of the century, in just a decade, a writer completely unknown to wider literary audiences, misunderstood in his home country, has become a universally recognized classic of the European literature and also an artist enjoying particular popularity among readers. Márai's poetry is more of a drama of moral dilemmas and intellectual diagnoses than a free play of imagination (his early works showed some attempts in the latter register). His poetry owes it generally to its rhetorical nature, always towering over "pictorial" imagery and only occasionally giving way to something that is commonly referred to as the simplicity of expression. We find in all of this the essential features of the author's personality, felt also in his prose. Because this is the way Márai is: sometimes repulsive, more often attractive. Fascinating.
Jerzy Snopek