Pixel

Shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize 2020 Like stars in the sky, pixels may seem like tiny, individual points. But, when viewed from a distance, they can create elaborate images. Each pixel contributes to this array, but no individual point can create the whole. The thirty stories that comprise Krisztina Tóth’s book similarly produce an interconnected web. While each tale of love, loss, and failed self-determination narrates the sensuousness of an individual’s life, together, the thirty stories tell a more complicated tale of relationships. Circumstances that appear unrelated may converge in harmony or in heartbreak, just as the events that loom largest may fail to produce a longed-for outcome. These threads often determine the course of lives in unpredictable ways—sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, but rarely in the ways we originally anticipated.