Líra Group a major player in the Hungarian book market. Líra includes a leading book distribution company, the biggest chain of bookstores in Hungary, an online bookstore. Líra is also an important cultural actor in the Hungarian book market: the company owns nine publishers (Athenaeum, Magvető, Corvina, Rózsavölgyi & Co, Manó Books, Menő Books, Partvonal, Szépmíves, General Press), two cultural venues, a private art agency, and a print and online events magazine, as well as two self-produced magazines. Our bookstore chain currently consists of ninety-six shops. Bookseller and publisher Gusztáv Emich opened his first bookstore in Pest in 1842. This marked the opening chapter in the history of the most illustrious brand of the Hungarian creative industry. Founded in 1868, by the end of the century Athenaeum PLC had a portfolio that embraced a publishing house, printing houses, newspapers and magazines, along with a book distribution chain. By that time, it had a 70% share of the Hungarian book market. This was the first modern media empire in the country. The first Hungarian Nobel Prize for Literature was given to Imre Kertész, a Magvető author, in 2002, while the first International Man Booker Prize awarded to a Hungarian went to László Krasznahorkai, another Magvető author, in 2015. Our group publishes international authors of such stature as J. R. R. Tolkien, Gabriel García Márquez, Anna Gavalda, Daniel Kehlmann and Karl Ove Knausgård, as well as some of the finest Hungarian writing, by authors including Ádám Bodor, György Dragomán, Péter Esterházy, Krisztián Grecsó, György Spiró and Krisztina Tóth.
