Commentary
About Truth and Other Fictions:
"Truth and Other Fictions...is an impressive and promising debut....a wonderfully written collection of takes on the elusiveness of truth. " Tihanyi "never sacrifices the particular human reality of her characters to the larger theoretical concerns she invokes, and the persuasiveness of her characterizations and the luminous quality of her visual descriptions of citycscapes and landscapes is strong enough to support her intellectual ambitions."
-- The Globe and Mail
"Truth and Other Fictions exemplifies a bold and unflinching willingness to initiate an authentic discussion about women's enduring challenges to define themselves within and outside of their personal relationships."
-- Quill and Quire
"There is an enchanted quality to this collection. Stories imagining women's lives from the past right to the present, their attempts to forge a sense of self in a man's world."
-- Michelle Reale, The Short Review
"...Tihanyi can write engaging narrative with her poet's sensibility, an excellent combination. ... The stories have an exquisite range. Truth and Other Fictions is an enticing debut collection."
-- Candance Fertile, Room
Tihanyi’s “work is concise and compressed, lucid and complex at the same time. Although the stories are short in length, they are deep and rich in references that reward a reader in much the same way that poetry does: there’s more here than meets the eye….”
-- Isabel Huggan author of The Elizabeth Stories
"Eva Tihanyi's stories embrace the paradox: 'Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.' From stories of heart-breaking cracks in relationship, to fresh takes on such women as Billie Holiday and Mary Leakey, this is graceful writing that tells a truth only fiction can tell."
-- Kim Echlin, author of The Disappeared
"Eva Tihanyi's stories are exquisite paintings rendered in words--layered, textured, evocative--suggesting what is and the ghost-like presence of what was, and what might be. Truth and Other Fictions seduces with concision and a delicious tension between object/subject, interior/exterior worlds, and the possibilities and impossibilities of truth."
-- Anna Camilleri, author of I Am a Red Dress
"In Eva Tihanyi's first collection of stories, Truth and Other Fictions, life iteself moves towards art. Tihanyi involves us in that process expressed as luminous moments of mainly contemporary female existence. Her women explore relationships and the sensual world, whether through painting, photography, music or personal makeover. Smoothly symbolic and often ironic, the deceptively random events in these brief narratives often make connections that transform the ordinary with lyrical insight."
-- Patricia Keeney, author of The Incredible Shrinking Wife
"Lives become art as poetry weds prose in this evocative collection. With memoir-like intimacy, Tihanyi drops us into moments of truth and longing for the celebrated--Picasso, Leakey, Holiday, Brassai--and the unknown. A muggy night 'as buttery as avocado,' a man as 'a crow, his dark feathers coy and meancing,' a 'scorched voice bare and absolute as bone': Tihanyi reveals through telling details and surprising images. Truth and Other Fictions is a lyrical gift."
-- Tricia Dower, author of Silent Girl
"Tihanyi employs the powerful word choice of a poet, the careful attention to detail of a researcher and academic, and the precise eye of a photographer.
-- Kerry Ryan, Herizons
About Wresting the Grace of the World:
“This exquisite little volume of poems is a joy from start to finish. Not that the subject matter is particularly joyful—but the poet’s artistry engages the reader on every page. … Every once in a while you come across a book of poems that delights all the senses and satisfies the intellect at the same time. Wresting the Grace of the World is such a book. It deserves to be read and reread by those who appreciate poetry—and by those who don’t.”
-- Sheila Martindale (Canadian Book Review Annual 2006)
“You want from a book of poems what you want from a foreign country: strangeness and freshness. You want to restock depleted images, reprime the weary heart and rebrick damaged memory. You want the freshness of a new beginning, even if the roads travelled on—full of heartbreak and heartbloom—are as old as stone. Mellifluously voiced and naturally spoken, Eva Tihanyi’s Wresting the Grace of the World delivers on all accounts.”
-- J.S. Porter (Hammered Out)
Tihanyi’s work is “sharply focused and often insightful, like a photo taken at a revealing moment.”
-- Barbara Carey (Toronto Star)
About Restoring the Wickedness:
“This is a very accomplished, beautifully crafted collection of poems.” -- Susan Musgrave
“Tihanyi…gives us exquisite glimpses into the world…encourages us to take the risk of love with the veils off, our eyes open.” -- Ellen Jaffe
The poems in the book’s final section “employ startling and beautiful metaphors….These poems are unforced, unself-conscious, and deeply touching.” -- Laura M. Robinson (Canadian Book Review Annual 2001)
About Saved by the Telling:
“Saved by the Telling is a fine work, full of colloquialism, personal in tone, and at times can straddle both the humorous and the serious with dexterity….Tihanyi writes with lyrical grace and precision.”
-- Marty Gervais (Windsor Star)
“Tihanyi’s poems are vibrant and evocative in their revelation of the dynamic and very distinct patterns of women’s lives; they speak to all women who live here and now.”
-- Kim Fahner (Canadian Book Review Annual 1996)