Short & Sharp: Téa Mutonji's Shut Up You're Pretty

“In the kitchen, my mother is dressing big pieces of blue tilapia fish, which she says was imported directly from the Congo River. It’s late in the afternoon, and I am thinking of one thing most specifically. How many men have I made this exact meal for? How many women? How many friends, lovers, acquaintances? How many people who had other people, and why?”

 

from Téa Mutonji’s Shut Up You’re Pretty

 

This collection of short stories follows our protagonist Loli, a young Congolese girl growing up in Ontario, through different moments, stages, friendships, and relationships. Loli is a young girl when we first meet her, she is in the midst of discovering her own femininity, sexuality, and the strength (and at times the fear and the confusion) in this very knowledge and awareness. The stories flow into one another and are often marked by her connections with other female characters as both a young girl and a young woman. I particularly enjoyed how interconnected these stories are as most of them are quite short and it was nice to stick with Loli and encounter certain characters again over the course of a few stories. 

 

These stories are heart-wrenching as we see the soft surface of innocence crack, as we witness toxic, racist, and sexist behaviour in stinging overt and dangerously covert scenes and encounters, and as we get to know our protagonist on an intimate and emotional level. Mutonji’s writing lays bare every minor detail, selects every word with extreme care, and strips the narrative of each story to its core. 

 

Some of my favourite stories dealt with Loli’s relationship with her family and while there aren’t many (I do wish there were more!), come the end of the collection, a two-page story brings us full circle as we are given details into Loli’s early years in an “after the fact” manner, which I thought was brilliant. Here’s to Téa Mutonji, an exciting voice in Canadian Literature!

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Speaking of Canadian literature, the Scotiabank Giller Prize has started ‘Master Panels,’ the first of which was a discussion of Black authors’ experience writing and publishing in Canada, it was a wonderful event and I do hope they will be back for a ‘part two’! You can watch a recording of the talk here: The Giller Master Panel: Black Writers’ Experience Publishing in Canada 

CBC Books continues to compile incredible lists of books by Black Canadian authors in honour of Black History Month: 25 Books by Black Canadian Authors to Read in 2021,  6 Black Canadian writers to watch in 2021,  11 Canadian books for kids and young adults to check out during Black History Month 2021, and Canada Reads starts on March 8th, check out the 2021 contenders here!