Krisztina Tóth's retrospective My Secret Life reviewed in The Guardian
Krisztina Tóth is one of the leading Hungarian poets of the generation who began publishing in the late 1980s. The recipient of many awards, she is also renowned for her fiction which has been translated into many languages including English. My Secret Life: Selected Poems, published by Bloodaxe Books in February 2025, is the first book of Krisztina Tóth’s poetry in English translation. The poems were selected by her from five of her nine published collections, with the addition of some new or previously uncollected poems. It won an English PEN Translates Award 2025.
Born in 1967, Krisztina Tóth is one of the most popular and best known Central European authors, and the recipient of numerous awards. She studied sculpting and literature in Budapest, spending two years in Paris during her university years. She has published nine books of poetry and ten books of prose to date as well as 24 books for children. In 2015, her novel Aquarium featured on the shortlist of the German Internationaler Literaturpreis. Her works have been translated into 25 languages; her novels, short stories and poems can be read in German, French, English, Polish, Finnish, Swedish, Czech and Spanish, among others. Her bestselling short novel Eye of the Monkey was published in Hungary in 2023; an English translation is forthcoming from Seven Stories Press (Penguin Random House) in the US in October 2025.
My Secret Life: Selected Poems is translated by poet George Szirtes, winner of The King's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2024.
‘Her work has the nervous energy of the times but is shaped by a deep and disciplined intelligence. Her subjects are invariably human. They are concerned with love, family, friendship, loss, and a kind of existential disaffection. [...] She is a bravura formalist when she needs to be. Her vigour and scope are enormous.’ – George Szirtes
REVIEW COVERAGE IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian, Poetry Books of the Month, Saturday 1 February 2025
Hungarian poet Krisztina Tóth’s first UK publication, My Secret Life: Selected Poems, was well reviewed in The Guardian’s Poetry Books of the Month feature.
‘Tóth is part of the generation of Hungarian writers who came of age in 1989, as the optimism of post-communism gave way to economic crisis, alienation and political viciousness. Tóth’s selected poems, potently translated into English for the first time by George Szirtes, communicate the regretful atmosphere of melancholy that permeates a damaged society … These wide-ranging, droll poems always seem to come back to the knotty discomforts of a changing self existing within a broken world...' – Rebecca Tamás, The Guardian (Poetry Books of the Month)
In print and online.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jan/31/the-best-recent-poetry-review-roundup
This review was reprinted in The Guardian Weekly of 7 February 2025.
JOINT ONLINE LAUNCH, WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2025
Krisztina Tóth and her translator George Szirtes took part in Bloodaxe’s online reading and discussion event on Wednesday 12 February 2025, along with Romanian poet Ana Blandiana, Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck, and their translators. They read from and discussed their new books with each other and with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley. A multilingual international online event. Available to watch via YouTube.
[04 February 2025]
