Krisztina Tóth: I write myself
– Hungary
Born in 1967, Krisztina Tóth is a poet, writer, translator and an author of children’s books. She started out as a student of sculpture before moving to literature. The two years spent in Paris during her university studies were a formative and magical experience for her. She now lives in Budapest , translates French poetry and teaches creative writing. She has published ten poetry collections and eight books of prose. Her works have been translated to over 15 languages, including Czech, e.g. the short-story collection Bar Code (2006), the novel Aquarium (2013) and the new fairy-tale book The Girl Who Didn't Speak (2015).Bar Code is a collection of novellas containing stories ranging from personal to intimate set in the 1970s.The characters of Aquarium, her first novel, eke out a living at a dilapidated tenement bloc’s gallery in the late 1940s, intoxicated by the smell of soups, crushed by omnipresent poverty and distant from an any sort of existence we would consider normal.Krisztina Tóth masterfully combines naturalism, irony and black humour.In the field of children’s books, she attracted attention by incorporating unusual, often taboo topics, which she handles with her typical humorous tone and ease.