Dobozy, Tamas 1969-

PERSONAL:

Born 1969, in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. Education: Victoria University, B.A.; Concordia University, M.A.; University of British Columbia, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Ontario, Canada. Office—Department of English, Wilfrid Laurier University, Leupols 2-123, 75 University Ave. W., Warterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5, Canada. E-mail—tdobozy@wlu.ca.

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, short-story writer, and educator. Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, assistant professor of English and film studies, 2004—; New York University, Fulbright Research Chair in Creative Writing, 2007—. Has taught at Memorial University.

AWARDS, HONORS:

subTerrain short fiction contest winner, 1995; Danuta Gleed Award shortlist, for When X Equals Marylou.

WRITINGS:

Doggone (novel), Gutter Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1998.

When X Equals Marylou (novel), Arsenal Pulp Press (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 2002.

Last Notes, and Other Stories, HarperCollins (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2005, Arcade Publishing (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Essays on Canadian Writing, 2001; Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, 2004; and Culture and the State 3: Nationalism, CRC Humanities Studio, 2004. Contributor to journals and periodicals, including Modern Fiction Studies and Canadian Literature.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tamas Dobozy, a Canadian novelist and short-story writer of Hungarian descent, is a professor of English and film studies at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His research interests include jazz, American literature, the connection between religion and literature, post-structuralism, and creative writing, according to a biographer for the Wilfred Laurier University Web site.

Dobozy is the author of the short-story collection, Last Notes, and Other Stories. "At once deeply sad and deeply funny, Dobozy's stories reference mental illness, family power struggles, and the dubiousness of history, which, according to this author, cannot be trusted," remarked reviewer Tiffany Lee-Youngren, writing in the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Given the difficulty of getting at any historical or personal truth," Dobozy infuses his stories with dissenting voices that question given interpretations of events within the story, noted Robert Murray Davis in World Literature Today. "This willingness to confront alternatives and not finally to condemn pervades the collection's stories with Hungarian themes," Davis continued, identifying a consistent ethnic tone in Dobozy's tales.

The ten stories in the collection, all narrated in the first person, consider complex emotional issues demonstrated by characters who often interact with their world in unusual ways. In "Into the Ring," Dobozy tells of a married couple who work out their differences through boxing. "Philip's Killer Hat" revolves around two brothers, one of whom is convinced that jazz musician Thelonious Monk's mental troubles were caused by wearing hats that were too tight. Throughout the course of the story, the narrator tries to convince his brother not to send letters to Monk's estate informing the musician's executors of the theory. The narrator of "Four Uncles" tells of his dangerous escape from Hungary in 1958 and how he reconnects with important relatives through the community of Hungarian exiles living in Canada. Though each man is not without sin, and some are at best rather unpleasant, all have suffered from the loss of their Hungarian homeland. "The Laughing Cat" concerns a group of friends whose two-decade-long association begins to erode after they realize they can no longer hear or tell each other's stories. "The Inert Landscapes of Gyorgy Ferenc" recounts how an exiled Hungarian artist reacts poorly to his new homeland of Canada, finding it to be a country that cannot be reproduced or represented in his paintings. "Dobozy's prose is an artistic and intellectual boon," remarked a Publishers Weekly reviewer. The author's "eloquence and piercing intelligence, like Stendhal's, does not allow us to forget but rather to face the harsh and disquieting world he creates," commented Davis.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Portland Mercury, July 3-July 9, 2003, Marjorie Skinner, review of When X Equals Marylou.

Publishers Weekly, July 31, 2006, review of Last Notes and Other Stories, p. 50.

San Diego Union-Tribune, November 5, 2006, Tiffany Lee-Youngren, "Taking ‘Notes’ on the Historical Record," review of Last Notes and Other Stories.

World Literature Today, November-December, 2006, Robert Murray Davis, "Diaspora's Children," review of When X Equals Marylou, p. 55, and Robert Murray Davis, review of Last Notes and Other Stories, p. 65.

ONLINE

Wilfred Laurier University Web site,http://www.wlu.ca/ (April 24, 2007), biography of Tamas Dobozy.

Concordia University Faculty of Arts and Science Web site,http://artsandscience1.concordia.ca/ (April 24, 2007), biography of Tamas Dobozy.