Experiments in Imagining Otherwise

Lola Olufemi

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

Chosen as a 2021 Book of the Year by The New Statesman, gal-dem & Red Pepper.

28 October 2021
Paperback / 9781914221057
ebook / 9781914221118
146 pages

Buy this book (paperback)

Buy this book (ebook)

‘An extraordinary book … A joy to read and to think with.’
— The New Statesman

‘Offer[s], above all else, hope for humanity … should be required reading for everyone.’
— The Guardian

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 futurity, political demands and imaginative-revolutionary potential. She is the author of Experiments in Imagining Otherwise and Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power, the co-author of A FLY Girl’s Guide to University, and a member of ‘bare minimum’, an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective.

Listen along to the Experiments in Imagining Otherwise playlist, curated by Lola Olufemi.

‘Expansive and generous.’
— TANK

‘A groundbreaking and necessary read.’
— Book Riot

‘I felt my brain spark and spin with possibility and confrontation … in all its bright, rich generosity, it reminds me that our reality is all a fiction.’
— gal-dem

‘One of the most interesting and inspiring feminist thinkers working in Britain today, Olufemi here cements her reputation as a powerful literary voice as well as a key political theorist.’
— Red Pepper

‘Reading this book encouraged me and made me feel less alone … I cannot recommend this book enough.’
— Bad Form

‘A necessary intervention … to go beyond the experiential and into the experimental.’
— LSE Review of Books

‘Intelligent, brave and challenging.’
— Totally Dublin

‘What is given is the act of giving itself—an invitation to think.’
— Review 31

‘Lola’s writing crackles kindness and oozes fury. Above all, it is direct … Everybody needs to read this book.’
— SPAM

‘A manifestation, not a manifesto ... Genreless, genreful … a living gift with which to make gifts of life.’
— periodicities

‘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 Abolish the Family and Full Surrogacy Now

‘Reminds us once more: the light is within us!’
— Imani Robinson, writer and curator

‘I was blown away ... It’s rare to come across a voice so committed to challenging every convention ... with such generosity, clarity and freshness of tone.’
— Preti Taneja, author of Aftermath and We That Are Young

‘Alive with ideas, jokes, dreams, rage and wisdom.’
— Sita Balani, co-author of Empire’s Endgame

Press

EXTRACT: Wandering Concepts

— Kunsthalle Bratislava, August 2023

REVIEW: Laying Out a Space

— Review 31, 19 October 2022

What to Read When the World Feels Hopeless

— Book Riot, 15 September 2022

Edinburgh International Book Festival: Week two recap

— The Skinny, 30 August 2022

Lola Olufemi on Experiments in Imagining Otherwise

— The Skinny, 11 August 2022