Experiments in Imagining Otherwise

Every broken window is a new opportunity. Every burnt ember is construction material.

This is a book of failure and mistakes; it begins with what is stolen from us and proposes only an invitation to imagine.

In these playful written experiments, Lola Olufemi navigates the space between what is and what could be. Weaving together fragmentary reflections in prose and poetry, this is an exploration of the possibility of living differently, grounded in black feminist scholarship and political organising.

Olufemi shows that the horizon is not an immaterial state we gesture toward. Instead, propelled by the motion of thinking against and beyond, we must invent the future now and never let go of the otherwise.

Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and CREAM/Stuart Hall Foundation researcher from London. Her work focuses on the uses of the feminist imagination and its relationship to cultural production, political demands and futurity. She is the author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power and a member of ‘bare minimum’, an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective.

‘Lola’s writing ... makes me embrace feeling like a dreamer.’ — Zoé Samudzi, co-author of As Black as Resistance

‘A balm that soothes the soul and eases the heart ... an open invitation through the portal ... into the otherwise.’ — Gail Lewis, co-founder of the Organisation for Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD)

‘Reading this book wrought magic in my spirit. I am floored! I am flying! … Here is some breath-giving medicine for this gasping historic moment. Here are some weapons for lovers, for feminists.’ — Sophie Lewis, author of Full Surrogacy Now