Mészáros Tibor (szerk.): Once I lived, I, Sándor Márai. Patterns from a globetrotting Hungarian's life (Budapest, 2004)

Márai's secret

achievements of democracy in the country, which is why three years later, in 1937 he wrote an essay about how the English export in highest demand is democracy. During World War 11 he wrote down some thoughts about attacks on the English fleet, mentioning an almost humorous incident. The German military, returning to the famous spa town of Karlsbad meet a calm English bather, who seemed to have no interest in the events.

He paid close attention to English writers and literature. He wrote about the fate of Joseph Rudyard Kipling’s estate, about Dickens and of course about Shakespeare. On the latter he wrote that, "over three hundred years writers have visited him for small loans like they would a bank." In a mini-essay he writes about the king of dramatic literature.

"He is the only manly poet in world literature. Manly, and thus secretive. People have hunted his secret for centuries, with chisels and with crowbars, as ifit were a pharaoh's grave in which all the treasures and

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