Téa Mutonji wins $20K Trillium Book Award, which recognizes best book in Ontario
Toronto writer Téa Mutonji has won the 2020 Trillium Book Award for her debut short story collection, Shut Up, You're Pretty.
The $20,000 annual prize recognizes excellence in writing by authors in Ontario.
Shut Up, You're Pretty is a set of loosely connected stories following a girl's coming of age in suburban Canada after immigrating from Congo. It was also shortlisted for the 2019 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
"The main themes in the book to me really centre around womanhood — not womanhood as a personal journey but often as a collective whole. I don't think it's possible to be a woman and not be influenced by another woman," Mutonji told CBC Books in an interview when the book was first published.
"I really wanted to test the limits, the boundaries and the sometimes toxic dependence of those kind of relationships."
The jury was comprised of Quill & Quire editor Steven W. Beattie, author Tamara Faith Berger and poet Damian Rogers.
The other finalists were Seth for his comic Clyde Fans, Zalika Reid-Benta for the linked short story collection Frying Plantain, Sara Peters for her experimental novel I Become a Delight to My Enemies and Christina Baillie and Martha Baillie for their co-autobiography Sister Language.
The poetry category winner was Roxanna Bennett for her collection unmeaningable. The winner of the poetry category receives $10,000.
unmeaningable casts a satirical eye on an ableist culture that stigmatizes disability and sickness. The book previously won the Raymond Souster Award.
Bennett lives in Whitby, Ont. She is also the author of the chapbook unseen garden and the poetry collection The Uncertainty Principle.
The poetry jury was comprised of poets Puneet Dutt, Emma Healey and David O'Meara.
The other poetry finalists were Doyali Islam for heft and Matthew Walsh for These are not the potatoes of my youth.
Last year's Trillium Book Award winner was Dionne Brand for The Blue Clerk. Last year's poetry winner was Robin Richardson for the collection Sit How You Want.
Other previous winners include Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Austin Clarke and Michael Ondaatje.
The 2020 French winners were Paul Ruban for his short story collection Crevaison en corbillard and Véronique Sylvain for her poetry collection Premier quart.
