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Sandor Marai

Sandor Marai

The lessons of his early 1940s novel 'Embers,' about a lost world

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Rod Dreher
Jul 06, 2021
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Sandor Marai
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Hungarian poet and novelist Sandor Marai, 1900-1989

On the train ride back from Vienna on Sunday I finished a deep and disturbing short novel, Embers, by Sandor Marai. The title of the original Hungarian translates as, Candles Burn Down To The End. Set in 1940, the novel takes place in a tomb-like country castle, in which an elderly Hungarian general has…

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