Béla Márkus was born in Bükkaranyos on 11 December 1945. He is a Hungarian literary historian, critic, and candidate for a doctorate in literary studies. His research areas include the Hungarian literature of the twentieth century, Hungarian minority literature, and the literatures of different ethnic groups. He graduated in 1970 from Lajos Kossuth University (nowadays known as the University of Debrecen) in the Faculty of Arts as with a degree in Hungarian and andragogy. In 1970–1974, Márkus was a member of the staff at the Hajdú-Bihari Napló (Daily News of Hajdú-Bihar County). In 1972, he graduated with a degree as a journalist. From 1974 to 1978, he was a reading editor for the periodical Alföld, and in 1978–1980, he became the main co-editor and, in 1990–1992, the main editor of the periodical. From 1993 to 2010, Márkus served as a professor in the Department of Modern Hungarian Literature at Lajos Kossuth University, where he complicated his habilitation in 2001.