“Reading Eye of the Monkey is like peering into the abyss and finding your consciousness forever altered. You cannot escape this book, you already hear its thunder!”
—Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature
“A terrifying novel that reminds us how autocracy’s brutality and stupidity destroy all that is good in life. Eye of the Monkey is unsparing, unforgettable. I read it with my heart in my throat.”
—Merve Emre, contributing editor at The New Yorker
“Krisztina Tóth is irredeemably a poet. This is revealed by every element of her latest novel. It lies in the nature of her attention, and as this attention seizes upon the world, she then, at one certain point in the world she wishes to portray, zeros in, heads down to the depths and — as if she could do nothing else — opens up this minor, seemingly insignificant detail, which then becomes an impetus for the entire work, illuminating it, as in Eye of the Monkey, tying together what she left behind with what she stands before. Krisztina Tóth is a magnificent artist; receive her as such.”
—László Krasznahorkai
“Toth is an acclaimed Hungarian writer and has written one of the most elegant, disorienting novels I’ve read this year: It’s funny and evenhanded enough that the finale arrives as a devastating fait accompli. And Mulzet’s translation is feverishly good.” — Joumana Khatib, New York Times
“Krisztina Tóth’s remarkable novel Eye of the Monkey is the literature of humanity’s inexorable end—not apocalyptic literature, that toy department of human fantasy, but something worse. These thoughtfully studied and sharply realized characters stumble through the wreckage of themselves and their own blighted lives—and every moment of love or light returns as injury, as wound. I read it in a day.”
—Jesse Ball, author of The Repeat Room
“The reader holds in their hands a superb novel—a subjective, even a personal account—of our daily lives in an autocratic society; our daily tensions and despairs. At the same time, in Tóth’s novel, we encounter people who—at times with heroic effort—attempt to live a human life. What makes this book exciting is how we are rooting for them—and for ourselves—for this to work out.”
—Béla Tarr, director of Palme d’Or-nominated film The Man from London (A londoni férfi)
“Tóth’s alluring English-language debut chronicles the affair between a patient and her psychiatrist in a dystopian near-future Europe. Citizens of the unnamed country are under constant surveillance by webcams and segregated by economic status. After Gizella, a married professor, is accosted by a young man claiming to be her son, she enters therapy with Dr. Mihály Kreutzer, to whom she insists she’s never been pregnant. . . . . The eerie story is buoyed by keen character work, as Tóth delves into the secrets people manage to keep even in a totalitarian state. Fans of tantalizing suspense and layered storytelling such as Ryeo-ryeong’s The Trunk will find much to enjoy.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Tóth’s prose, like the surveillance state it describes, misses nothing…. What we are left with is not only a powerful impression of the alienating effects of authoritarianism, but a cautionary tale about self-deception.”—FT
“Despite the novel’s intentional vagaries and gaps, the writing and translation are gorgeous and specific. . . . Even though the novel is written in close third and the characters are unable to speak openly with each other (or even introspectively) due to their fear of surveillance, the richness of the prose opens up a rich and engaging vision into their lives.”—Asymptote
“An intriguing novel in which the characters’ actions are often as surprising as they are disillusioning.”—Irish Times
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