Téa
Mutonji
Téa Mutonji’s debut collection of short stories, Shut Up You’re Pretty, was published by VS. Books/Arsenal Pulp Press in 2019. She was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and won the Edmund White Award and Trillium Book Award. Her essay “The Price of Being Pretty” was nominated for a Digital Publishing Award from the National Media Awards Foundation. She holds a degree in media studies with minors in both English literature and creative writing from the University of Toronto Scarborough and is the recipient of the Jill Davis Fellowship in Fiction at New York University. Mutonji currently lives in Toronto. She was selected as a 2022 Writers’ Trust Rising Star by André Alexis.
Videos
Téa Mutonji on Shut Up You're Pretty
Award History
Jury Citation
"Téa Mutonji’s Shut Up You’re Pretty is a fiercely intelligent collection about the inner lives of young women, examining abortion, family conflict, and the emergence of sexual identity. In writing marked by bursts of intense language, Mutonji takes the reader into her nuanced study of a young Congolese immigrant, always refusing to look away from pain and uncertainty. Driven by its crisp, unsettling dialogue and meticulous psychological detail, this is a compelling work about the fear and yearning of our youth."
— 2019 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury (Dennis Bock, Michael Kaan, and Suzette Mayr)
Juror History
Program History
Citation
"What I admired most when I read Mutonji’s Shut Up You’re Pretty was the subtlety of detail, the way power and longing are related, and the extraordinary control of her language. It is a wonderful first book, a great collection of stories filled with promise. I feel honoured to be able to read her next work before anyone else and I look forward to learning from her."
