Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Rebels | 1930 | Sándor Márai | Buy |
| 2 | Esther’s Inheritance | 1939 | Sándor Márai | Buy |
| 3 | Casanova in Bolzano / Conversations in Bolzano | 1940 | Sándor Márai | Buy |
| 4 | Portraits of a Marriage | 1941 | Sándor Márai | Buy |
| 5 | Embers | 1942 | Sándor Márai | Buy |
“Sándor Márai’s novels were written across a twelve-year span from 1930 to 1942, but they reached English readers in a different order than their original publication. Embers, his most famous work, is a devastating two-person drama disguised as a dinner conversation. Two old men sit across a table and revisit a friendship broken by betrayal, jealousy, and a woman they both loved. The novel strips human relationships down to their foundations.”
“His other novels cover similarly intense ground. Casanova in Bolzano reimagines the legendary seducer’s visit to a small Italian city. Portraits of a Marriage tells the same story from three different perspectives. Esther’s Inheritance examines what happens when a charming con man returns to the family he once exploited. The Rebels, his earliest novel in this collection, follows restless young men in a provincial town. Each book is concerned with the interior lives of people whose surfaces look composed.”