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;
her parents are from
Kolkata.
Her parents named her after the character Durga in the
Satyajit Ray-directed film
Pather Panchali.
Chew-Bose moved to the United States at 17 to attend boarding school in New Mexico for two years.
She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and spent a year at the University of Oxford.
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.
In
Nylon, Kristen Iverson described Chew-Bose as "one of our most gifted, insightful essayists and critics";
in
The Guardian, Sarah Galo said: "If
millennials have an
intelligentsia, Brooklyn-based writer Durga Chew-Bose is a member of it, thoughtful long reads on identity and culture that command readers’ attention."
Chew-Bose has also taught writing at Sarah Lawrence College.
Too Much and Not the Mood
Taking its title from one of
Virginia Woolf's diary entries
from 1931,
Chew-Bose's
Too Much and Not the Mood is an essay collection
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."
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."
Writers of Color
In 2015, Chew-Bose cofounded the website Writers of Color with Buster Bylander,
and Vijith Assar.
The site is a searchable database of contemporary writers of color.
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.
[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.] She has also been announced as the winner of the Emerging Talent Award at the 2024 TIFF Tribute Awards.
[ "Mike Leigh to Receive Ebert Director Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival". RogerEbert.com, July 30, 2024.]
Publications
External links
