Melancholy made in Hungary is fuelling bestsellers across the globe – and widely misunderstood

A ‘capacity for despair’ forged by political oppression has long been consider a Magyar national trait. But after Orbán, writers in the country remind us that melancholy must not always be bleak A lone visitor looks for a garden outside an empty monastery. A morose housekeeper won’t let anyone behind the door of her own home. A retired general living alone on a crumbling estate waits 40 years to confront the only friend he ever had. Melancholy, an affinity with oblivion without a concrete…