My Person

Téa Mutonji writes sharply about the subtle ruptures endemic to formative friendships – Raven Leilani, author of LUSTER
A nuanced and fearless exploration of friendship, family, race and class, and the extraordinary pressures of coming of age as an artist, told with subtlety and verve – Nussaibah Younis, author of FUNDAMENTALLY
Thank god for Téa Mutonji. Her new novel, My Person, covers the tricky territory of two lifelong friends extricating themselves from each other’s lives. It sounds sad, and it is, but it’s also sexy, infuriating, and unbelievably fun to read. You can tell you’re in the hands of a poet; the writing crackles on the page. This is a writer who can read someone to filth in just one line. If you’ve ever known the pain of a friend breakup, this one’s for you. Téa Mutonji has managed to take some of the ugliest thoughts and worst moments and turn it into a sparkling novel about reclaiming your sense of self – Katie Yee, author of MAGGIE
A novel unlike anything I’ve read before, teeming with pathos, authenticity and wit. On the surface My Person is about friendship - the intimacy, the codependency, the envy, the rage and the love - but also it’s a novel about a Black girl who dares to behave badly, to shun the expectations of those around her and search for freedom while in a freefall. My Person is sexy, hilarious, devastating and compulsively readable. I downed it in one sitting like a shot of hard liquor, savouring the burn. An explosive debut from a once-in-a-generation talent. – Jasmine Sealy, author of THE ISLAND OF FORGETTING
In her searing debut novel, Téa Mutonji delivers an unflinching portrait of female friendship in all its ferocity and tenderness. Mutonji traces the bond between two young women whose relationship is as sustaining as it is suffocating, as loving as it is destructive. Visceral and impossible to shake, My Person announces an essential new voice in contemporary fiction – Carley Fortune, author of EVERY SUMMER AFTER
Witty and sexy and an extraordinarily intimate story of identity and lifelong relationships. Mutonji has a singular talent for writing beautiful, thought-provoking, challenging prose without ever losing momentum on the page. This novel is populated with very real, complicated characters navigating race and privilege and their impact on friendship, chosen and biological family, and self. Mutonji’s voice is distinctive and self-assured, precise and personal, and My Person is a remarkable accomplishment. – Fawn Parker, author of HI, IT’S ME
Searing … Mutonji unflinchingly examines what it means to lose yourself in a relationship, giving platonic bonds the same psychological weight we usually reserve for romantic ones. She also deftly exposes the subtle sting of race and class in a supposedly tolerant Canada, where racism doesn’t announce itself dramatically but quietly erodes personhood through acts of extravagant generosity. It’s a sharp, uncomfortable observation. Readers of Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, and Luster by Raven Leilani, will find much to love here. My Person is an assured, necessary debut novel from a truly promising writer * Booklist *
This is a sharp and sexy book, full of indelible moments when the truth gushes out and what’s said cannot be unsaid. An unflinching, heartbreaking examination of all that comes with loving, and losing, a best friend. A fabulous debut – deeply enjoyable – Jean Chen Ho, author of FIONA AND JANE

Tea Mutonji’s first book, the story collection Shut Up You’re Pretty, was shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (2019) and won the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award (2020) and the Trillium Book Award (2020). My Person started as her thesis project at NYU, where she received the Jill Davis Fellowship. This is her first novel.

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