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by Téa Mutonji
A bold debut from an exhilarating, multi-award-winning young writer, following two lifelong friends who suddenly find themselves in an emotional deadlock when one abruptly proposes to break up after years of subtle betrayals.
Best friends of over twenty years, Tania and Margot are preparing to host their monthly Sunday Loaf dinner party, when Tania tells Margot this isn't working for her anymore—they've been entangled for too long, she wants to "unknow" her. But how do you extricate yourself from someone whose family owns the apartment you live in, who has taken you in as their own, even claims you as their "person"?
As Tania attempts to live her life loudly on the outskirts of Margot's bubble, Margot's past betrayals become increasingly clear. But she means well, doesn't she? They had felt like sisters from the start. Or had Tania just been blind to Margot's antics? Set in the framework of a tense will-they-won't-they break-up, Tania and Margot get entangled in a rigorous revision of history, their once delicate dance intensifying toward a frantic finale that neither person sees coming.
A taut, piercing exploration of race and privilege, codependency, and the ways in which world-defining friendships can be both beautifully and excruciatingly life altering, My Person is an addicting, astutely observed novel from an astonishing new talent.
"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; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
"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
This information about My Person was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Téa Mutonji is a poet and fiction writer. Her debut collection of short stories, Shut Up You're Pretty was a finalist for the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize (2019) and Canada Reads (2024). It won the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award (2020) and the Trillium Book Award (2020). Mutonji was a recipient of the Writer's Trust Rising Star's award (2022) and received the Jill Davis Fellowship (2021) at New York University where she completed her MFA in fiction.
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