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- Title
THE PRICE OF BEAUTY IN TÉA MUTONJI'S SHUT UP YOU'RE PRETTY.
- Authors
Ignjatović, Sanja J.
- Abstract
Drawing on the idea that the exploration of female identity and race necessarily relies on the subversion of the mainstream discourse and the economic, social, and cultural context, this paper deals with instances of irony as socio-political criticism in the short story collection Shut Up You're Pretty (2019), authored by Téa Mutonji, a Canadian award-winning poet and writer. Inspired by her African origins and the transgenerational wounds she has witnessed in the immigrant community, Mutonji's stories offer a defamiliarizing rawness to the characters' discoveries of their own femininity, womanhood, and identity in a bildungsroman form of sorts, but the subversive note, as illustrated in the paper, belongs to the storyteller's own finding an authentic and uncompromising voice relating a collective experience. Humor is explored against its ironic edge, perhaps a typically Canadian one, and the analysis of stories provides insight into how this contemporary author, as a Black woman, critically assesses the historically inherited values pertaining to femininity and womanhood, but also claims her space in the tradition of female writing characterized by political and critical humor.
- Subjects
BILDUNGSROMANS; FEMININITY; PRICES; FEMININE identity; SHORT story collections; RACE identity; CANADIAN literature; RACE
- Publication
Nasleđe, 2023, Issue 56, p183
- ISSN
1820-1768
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.46793/NasKg2356.183I