Téa Mutonji

Téa Mutonji is a Canadian writer and poet, whose debut short story collection Shut Up You're Pretty was published in 2019.

Early life Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mutonji came to Canada with her family when she was young and grew up in the Scarborough district of Toronto and in Oshawa. While living in Scarborough, she worked in the service industry. She then studied media studies and creative writing at the Scarborough campus of the University of Toronto,

Works Shut Up You're Pretty, published in 2019, is a collection of linked short stories about a young girl's coming of age in Scarborough's Galloway neighborhood.

Themes In an interview with CityNews, Mutonji stated that she writes from an "activist lens".

Mutonji has expressed that being called pretty is not a compliment. It is offensive because it prioritizes women’s physical appearance and overshadows other attributes. Instead, Mutonji describes a shift that is happening where women demand that their character is looked at first.

In 2023 she was named one of the ten winners of the Journey Prize, in a special edition devoted to Black Canadian writers.

Shut Up You're Pretty was selected for the 2024 edition of Canada Reads, where it was defended by actress Kudakwashe Rutendo.

Year Work Award Category Result Ref 2019 Shut Up You're Pretty Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize — Trillium Book Award English 2020 Edmund White Award — 2023 — Journey Prize —

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