Durga Chew-Bose

Durga Chew-Bose
on stage
Chew-Bose in 2024
Born
Montreal, Canada
Alma materSarah Lawrence College
OccupationWriter
Notable workToo Much and Not the Mood

Durga Chew-Bose is a Canadian writer and film director. Her first book, Too Much and Not the Mood, was published in 2017. Her first film, Bonjour Tristesse, which she adapted from the Françoise Sagan novel by the same name, debuted at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

Early life

Chew-Bose was born in Montreal;[1] her parents are from Kolkata.[2] Her parents named her after the character Durga from the Satyajit Ray-directed film Pather Panchali.[3] Chew-Bose moved to the United States at 17 to attend boarding school in New Mexico for two years.[2] She went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College and spent a year at the University of Oxford.[4][5]

Career

Chew-Bose has written for publications including The Guardian, BuzzFeed, The Hairpin, Rolling Stone, GQ, The New Inquiry, n+1, Interview, Paper, Hazlitt, and This Recording.[6] In Nylon, Kristen Iverson described Chew-Bose as "one of our most gifted, insightful essayists and critics";[7] in The Guardian, Sarah Galo said, "If millennials have an intelligentsia, Brooklyn-based writer Durga Chew-Bose is a member of it[, writing] thoughtful long reads on identity and culture that command readers’ attention."[8]

Chew-Bose has also taught writing at Sarah Lawrence College.[9] She has listed Agnès Varda and Wong Kar-wai among her important influences.[10]

Too Much and Not the Mood

Taking its title from one of Virginia Woolf's diary entries[2] from 1931,[11] Chew-Bose's Too Much and Not the Mood is an essay collection[12] describing "the complications of growing up and establishing oneself...what it means to be a brown girl in a white world and 'the beautiful dilemma of being first-generation' Canadian."[13]

Critics have emphasized the stylistic innovation of Chew-Bose's writing in the collection. Naming Too Much and Not the Mood to a Bustle list of "15 Most Anticipated Feminist Book Releases Of 2017," Sadie L. Trombetta described the book as a "collection of essays, letters, prose, and poetry."[14] Listing Too Much and Not the Mood among the 25 "Most Exciting Book Releases for 2017", Maris Kreizman said in New York Magazine's Vulture, "If you admire Maggie Nelson’s ability to combine the personal and the academic into a thrilling new art form, Durga Chew-Bose will be your next favorite writer."[15] Publishers Weekly said of the collection, "Twists in language and heady cultural references elevate Chew-Bose’s debut above the recent crop of personal essay collections by young writers."[13]

Writers of Color

In 2015, Chew-Bose cofounded the website Writers of Color With Buster Bylander[16] Jazmine Hughes and Vijith Assar.[17][18][19] The site is a searchable database of contemporary writers of color.[20]

Bonjour Tristesse

Bonjour Tristesse, Chew-Bose's debut feature film as a director, is slated to premiere in the Discovery program at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.[21] She has also been announced as the winner of the Emerging Talent Award at the 2024 TIFF Tribute Awards.[22]

Publications

  • Too Much and Not the Mood. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2017. ISBN 9780374535957. OCLC 946693764.

References

  1. ^ "TOO MUCH AND NOT THE MOOD by Durga Chew-Bose". Kirkus Reviews. March 1, 2017. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  2. ^ a b c Stern, Amanda. "Durga Chew-Bose". Interview Magazine. No. April 10, 2017. Archived from the original on 11 April 2017. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  3. ^ Chew-Bose, Durga (8 May 2017). "'Constant Compass: Uma Das Gupta in Pather Panchali'". Criterion. Archived from the original on 18 October 2020. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
  4. ^ Gray, Rosie (16 August 2011). "Fact-Checking The New York Observer's Media Power Bachelorettes List". Village Voice. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  5. ^ "Bulletin July 2007 | South Asian Women's Community Centre – Centre communautaire des femmes Sud-Asiatiques". www.sawcc-ccfsa.ca. Archived from the original on 2017-05-23. Retrieved 2017-04-12.
  6. ^ "30 Under 30: The Envy Index". Brooklyn Magazine. 28 September 2015. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  7. ^ Iversen, Kristin (December 24, 2016). "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017". Nylon. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  8. ^ Galo, Sarah (5 March 2015). "Durga Chew-Bose: 'Women have been edited since we were little girls'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  9. ^ "Durga Chew-Bose". www.sarahlawrence.edu. Sarah Lawrence College. Archived from the original on 14 October 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  10. ^ Bolick, Kate (2017-04-07). "Essays". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2018-01-26. Retrieved 2018-01-17.
  11. ^ Newell-Hanson, Alice (January 20, 2017). "10 brilliant emerging female authors to read in 2017". i-D. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  12. ^ Bolick, Kate (2017-04-07). "Essays". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2017-04-10. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  13. ^ a b "Nonfiction Book Review: Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays by Durga Chew-Bose". Publishers Weekly. March 27, 2017. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  14. ^ Trombetta, Sadie L. (January 10, 2017). "15 Most Anticipated Feminist Book Releases Of 2017". Bustle. Archived from the original on 13 April 2020. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  15. ^ Kreizman, Maris; Kachka, Boris (January 10, 2017). "25 of the Most Exciting Book Releases for 2017". Vulture. New York Magazine. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  16. ^ "The 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture - Brooklyn Magazine". Brooklyn Magazine. 2016. Archived from the original on 2017-10-14. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  17. ^ Varagur, Krithika (24 November 2015). "How To Solve Media's Diversity Problem". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  18. ^ Friedlander, Emilie (June 3, 2015). "The World Doesn't Need More Female Music Critics". The FADER. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  19. ^ Monroe, Jen (February 26, 2016). "Writers of Color.org". VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts. Archived from the original on August 16, 2016.
  20. ^ "Writers of Color • About". www.writersofcolor.org. Archived from the original on 2016-07-02. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  21. ^ Zac Ntim, "TIFF 2024: Laura Carreira’s ‘On Falling’ & ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ Starring Chloë Sevigny Among Titles Set For Discovery Sidebar". Deadline Hollywood, July 24, 2024.
  22. ^ "Mike Leigh to Receive Ebert Director Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival". RogerEbert.com, July 30, 2024.