He is not interested in the superficial levels of human personality... but precisely in that private dimension that is essentially so enormous, but little researched; human consciousness, conscience and the subconscious.
Jozef Felix
Johanides`s bad luck is that he does not write in English, for he could have been known around the world. Slovak literature is extremely lucky that he does not.
Ivica Ruttkayová-Maderová
To read the essays and conversations of Johanides is instructive, but mostly depressing... The judgements that Johanides pronounces systematically and with cold sincerity are not products of his soul, nor his rational thinking. They were forced on him every day by the world. This wise sceptic distrusts even his own fear and deals with it by writing. He senses the closeness of the abyss and knows that one cannot avoid it, as there is something fatal about human life. And yet again and again he writes of his knowledge of life that is truer than reality itself.
Peter Andruška
