STARFest presents Téa Mutonji and Zalika Reid-Benta
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The punchy, sharply observed stories in Shut up You’re Pretty blur the lines between longing and choosing, exploring the narrator's experience as an involuntary one. Tinged with pathos and humour, they interrogate the moments in which femininity, womanness, and identity are not only questioned but also imposed.
Set in the neighbourhood of “Little Jamaica,” Zalika Reid-Benta’s Frying Plantain follows a girl from elementary school to high school graduation as she navigates the tensions between mothers and daughters, second-generation immigrants experiencing first-generation cultural expectations, and Black identity in a predominantly white society.
Téa Mutonji and Zalika Reid-Benta will be in conversation with Valerie Mason-John.
- Date:
- Monday, October 26, 2020
- Time:
- 7:00pm - 8:30pm
- Location:
- Online
Born in Congo, Kinshasa, Téa Mutonji is a poet and author. Her debut collection, Shut Up You're Pretty, was published by Vivek Shraya's imprint, VS. Books (Arsenal Pulp Press).
Shut Up You're Pretty was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust in Canadian fiction (2019) and the Ontario Trillium Award in Fiction (2020), and a Globe & Mail Best Book of the Year. It won the 2020 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the Ontario Trillium Award in Ficiton (2020). Her essay, “The Price of Being Pretty,” published by Walrus Magazine, is a finalist for a Digital Award in Publishing for Best Personal Essay. Mutonji writes and gets lost in Downtown Toronto.
Zalika Reid-Benta is the winner of the ByBlacks People’s Choice Award for Best Author, was a Writer in Residence for Open Book, and was named a CBC Writer to Watch. She received an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University, was a John Gardner Fiction Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and is an alumnus of the Banff Centre Writing Studio.
Since the 1990s, Valerie Mason-John has been a performer and spoken-word poet using the stage name Queenie. Black British by birth, she has now become a Canadian. Mason-John is the author of eight books and works as a public speaker in Mindfulness for Addiction and Emotional Well Being and is a trainer in anti-bullying and conflict resolution.
For more information, visit our website: https://www.starfest.ca/