Writing Otherwise: Lola Olufemi and Yara Rodrigues Fowler

Hear from authors Lola Olufemi and Yara Rodrigues Fowler on the role of literature, art, story-telling and the imagination in the struggle for liberation at this event organised by Books Against Borders. We will hear from both writers about their work and their approach, before participating in an interactive workshop.

• How do we render the feeling of collective struggle into something tangible for others?
• Can writing convey the power and relationality experienced in collective action, in a movement?
• What can we do to ensure that readers connect the world of the novel to the world around us?

Our art, our imaginations, are vehicles that can evoke joy, sorrow, grief, and the impulse to take action. We aim to explore the liberatory potential behind such work.

As this is a workshop, spaces are limited – if you cannot attend, please let us know as soon as you can so that we can free up your ticket for somebody else! Tickets are free, but we encourage those who can to make a donation to the Feminist Library.

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Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and Stuart Hall foundation researcher from London based in the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media at the University of Westminster. Her work focuses on the uses of the feminist imagination and its relationship to cultural production, political demands and futurity. She is author of Feminism, Interrupted : Disrupting Power (Pluto Press, 2020), and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (Hajar Press, 2021), and a member of ‘bare minimum’, an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective.

Yara Rodrigues Fowler is the author of two novels, Stubborn Archivist (Fleet, 2019), and there are more things (Fleet, 2022), which was shortlisted for Goldsmiths Prize and Orwell Prize for Fiction. In 2023, Yara was listed as one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’. She also works as a part-time climate justice organiser.

Books Against Borders is a collective learning project exploring decolonial, abolitionist and anti-capitalist work. We view collective education as fundamental to any movement, and aim to bring together theory and practice in our organising.