'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. Tragic in one sense but ever inventive, full of life's minute yet highly resonant particulars, they seem to extend into an almost cinematic narrative about the cruelties of factory farming, murder, ageing, the treatment of women as sex toys and death itself. She is a bravura formalist when she needs to be. Her vigour and scope are enormous.' -- George Szirtes 'Krisztina Toth's luminous and haunting poetry tells the story of a self, in public and private.' - Susan Bassnett, Véronique Tadjo and Boyd Tonkin, Judges of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2025 'Poems pulsating with sensual power, deeply painful poems, about everything that is regarded as very personal.
[.] Not with her themes, not with her tone does she prove to be an innovator. In this respect she remains faithful to the great, intellectual current of Hungarian poetry, a current that is not very old. It can be traced back to the beginning of the twentieth century [.] Krisztina Tóth proves herself to be an innovator within this important tradition through the stirring rhythm of her poems. She wraps her persona, ready for any change of form, in rhythm. In other words, she makes herself impersonal in the most personal of ways and ready for confessions that are relevant for everyone; through her changing tone, through her surprises. [.
] Krisztina Tóth's composition sets her apart from all the others. She has the strength of a buffalo and the weightlessness of a butterfly.' - Péter Nádas, afterword to Barcode 'Tóth muses that generations of humans, like bobbing needles, are "seaming together the fraying layers of the past and the present". Their countries of origin don't matter; neither do their religions, genders, or ethnicities. What Tóth creates in Pixel is emblematic of Europe as she sees it: a place in which "everything is sewn together while the thread itself is invisible".' --Stephanie Newman, review of Pixel, titled ''The Hungarian Author who foresaw the future of Nationalism'' '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) 'With poet-translator George Szirtes showcasing a selection spanning five collections, you know you are in safe hands. His insightful translator's introduction to the book provides invaluable context. Although one of Hungary's internationally acclaimed writers, Krisztina Tóth is no longer able to live in her homeland owing to the repressive climate fostered by the government of Viktor Orbán. [.] It is perhaps not surprising then to find a sense of displacement running through her work.' - Maria Jastrzebska, #RivetingReviews, European Literature Network.