When a six-year-old Maria Valenta Pinto Catotola Bowling GS finished her first-grade final exam ahead of schedule and wasn’t allowed to leave class early, she asked to be given the next day’s test to pass the time.
“This precocious retort already revealed what would become her signature: an insatiable thirst for excellence and an absolute refusal of idleness,” her older brother Arialdo Jorge Pinto Amós Catotola wrote to The Daily Princetonian.
Bowling, a first-year graduate student in the Department of History, passed away on November 9. She was 26.
Born on April 7, 1999 in Angola, Bowling was originally supposed to be named Ariana — but Arialdo Catotola explained that her name was decided by “a rather outlandish bet” between her father, Crisostomo Mariti Amós Catotola, and a colleague, Laurent, on the sex of the unborn child.
“Dad was convinced it would be a boy and dreamed of winning the equivalent of five times his monthly salary,” Arialdo Catotola wrote. However, Bowling was born and given the first name of Laurent’s wife, Maria Valenta.
“No one ever called her that. For all of us, she was always Ariana,” Arialdo Catotola wrote.
After the family moved to Paris in 2005, Arialdo Catotola recalled a time when a conductor came to check their family’s tickets on the metro. Bowling’s mother said she was only four years old to avoid paying the fare. Straight away, six-year-old Bowling corrected her, and remarked that her mother had always taught her it was wrong to lie.
From a young age, Bowling was considered by her family and teachers alike to be academically gifted. But her curiosity, intensity, and integrity extended beyond the classroom and library.
“It didn’t matter what we were talking about; I just always wanted to be talking about something with her,” said Tanner Bowling, her husband, in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “When you had a conversation with Maria, you truly felt like you were the only two people on earth.”
Upon moving to Paris in 2005, Bowling learned French at a “stunning” speed, Arialdo Catotola said.
“Her progress was so rapid that [her teachers] constantly suggested to our parents that they let her skip a grade,” he wrote.
Bowling earned her B.A. in international studies from Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris and her M.A. in political science from the University of Paris 8. Her research interests focused on the politics and history of language as a tool of nation building in Angola and southern Africa.
Ella Kare, Bowling’s friend from the Sorbonne Nouvelle, described Bowling as “all in on everything she did, never half-hearted.”
“Bowling was a brilliant scientific mind [...] with an unbelievable capacity for abstraction, pattern recognition, and revolutionary thinking,” Kare wrote to the ‘Prince.’
But Bowling stood out in more than her academics.
Another friend from Paris, Ioan Suhov, recalled that Bowling was “naturally curious, yet permanently convinced that others had more to say, that listening was a virtue.”
“Should I mention the bar in Paris where we spent evenings in a row when we were both broke? The way she signed off her emails in French ‘en vous souhaitant une très agréable journée’ ?,” Suhov wrote to the ‘Prince,’ with the French phrase “wishing you a very pleasant day.”
“This is the hardest text I have ever had to write,” Suhov noted. “Somehow, I’m certain she hasn’t left me, that one day she’ll come back and tell me there’s another book we need to read together.”
“[Maria] existed as a shooting star, with whom I was supposed to cross paths, to understand what true love is,” Kare wrote.
“She had a great way of making everyone feel just understood and very special,” Tanner Bowling said. “She was able to make people feel welcome, even in situations that were a bit uncomfortable.” The Bowlings met online over Twitter in 2019 and got married in April 2023 in Luanda, Angola.
Theo Anastopolou GS, the only other History graduate student researching Africa in Bowling’s cohort at Princeton, described that aside from her academic work, Bowling loved the musical Hamilton, little chocolates, and physical books.
“There was such an old school quality of her that was so distinctive… I can’t separate thinking about Maria without her books,” said Anastopoulo.
Tanner Bowling also recalled his spouse’s passion for cooking. In the kitchen, she “seemed to just come up with ideas for dishes out of thin air,” he said. They also loved watching interior design videos together.
“She wanted to sympathize with people and [make sure] no one was feeling left out or excluded,” Anastopoulo told the ‘Prince.’ “That’s something I've been thinking about a lot, really recently, just how funny she was and how witty she was.”
Annhuy Do GS, a fellow History Ph.D. student, remembered that after Bowling gave a presentation on the historiography of Africa, he went up to congratulate her.
“And then she was just like, ‘all I need is a hug, right now.’ And so we hugged, and I hadn’t realized that would be one of my last interactions with her. She really taught me [that] it’s so important to embrace and just really care for the people around you at the moment,” Do said.
“Maria was a brilliant person, academically and in person,” History Professor Emmanuel Kreike, who worked closely with Bowling, wrote to the ‘Prince.’
“Her passing is a great loss for her family and friends as well as for the field of African history, (for I have no doubt she would have become a leading voice on the history of Africa),” Kreike wrote.
“The reason why we do research,” Do said, referring to himself and Bowling, “is because of just an intrinsic urge to illuminate and provide representation for the lived experience of our family and our ancestors, and giving them justice within academic scholarship.”
“She showed me that people who could truly meet us in passion for life, intensity of love, … truly existed,” Kare added.
“She leaves behind a considerable intellectual legacy, academic work that will continue to inspire future generations, and above all, engraved in our family’s heart, the imperishable memory of an exceptional, brilliant, generous, and determined woman,” Arialdo Catotola wrote. “I miss you infinitely, little sister.”
Bowling is survived by her husband, Tanner Bowling, her parents, Crisostomo Catotola and Maria do Rosario Pinto Catotola, her brother Arialdo Catotola, and her younger sister Ariela Bendita Pinto Catotola.
Clara Docherty is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Lafayette, N.J., and typically covers campus clubs and institutional legacy. She can be reached at clara.docherty[at]princeton.edu.
Maya Mukherjee is a staff News writer and head Podcast editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from New York City.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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