Lola Olufemi (; born 1996) is a British writer. She is an organiser with the London Feminist Library, and her writing has been published in many national and international magazines and newspapers. She is the author of ''Experiments in Imagining Otherwise'' and ''Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power'', and the co-editor of ''A FLY Girl's Guide to University: Being a Woman of Colour at Cambridge and Other Institutions of Power and Elitism''.

Early life and education

Olufemi was born and grew up in London, their family home being in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

. She attended

Enfield County School Enfield County is a girls' comprehensive school which was once created as Enfield Chace School in 1967, following the amalgamation of Enfield County School, which had been a girls' grammar school, with Chace Girls School, a secondary modern scho ...

and studied English at

Selwyn College, Cambridge Selwyn College, Cambridge (formally Selwyn College in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1882 by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of George Augustus Selwyn (18 ...

. She was the Women's Officer for

Cambridge University Students' Union Cambridge Students' Union, known as Cambridge SU, is the university-wide representative body for students at the University of Cambridge, England. Its predecessor union was known as Cambridge University Students' Union or CUSU until its dissolu ...

, and one of the facilitator's of FLY, the university's network for women and

non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...

people of colour. She is currently researching for a PhD, with a TECHNE AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Studentship with the

University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Polyte ...

and Stuart Hall Foundation.

Work

Writing and speaking

Olufemi has written and spoken on a range of topics including: art and culture; feminism, gender and sexism (including the Women's Strike and Time's Up movements); food equality; climate justice and race; race and racism, including archives of radical Black British activism; and higher education issues, including institutional justice and sexual harassment in universities, and decolonising practices in higher education (for which she was targeted with a "vicious and misleading" sexist and racist harassment by British right-wing press). Poet Jay Bernard interviewed Olufemi for Housmans Bookshop, and the pair discussed the "

internationalist Internationalist may refer to: * Internationalism (politics), a movement to increase cooperation across national borders * Liberal internationalism, a doctrine in international relations * Internationalist/Defencist Schism, socialists opposed to ...

ethos of black feminist movements in the 70s and 80s", connecting feminist struggles such as protests against sexual violence with opposition to

settler colonialism Settler colonialism is a structure that perpetuates the elimination of Indigenous people and cultures to replace them with a settler society. Some, but not all, scholars argue that settler colonialism is inherently genocidal. It may be enacted ...

. Olufemi with Che Gossett and Sarah Shin organised a month-long programme of talks and events under the title "Revolution is not a one-time event" in summer 2020. The launch event, hosted by Silver Press on 9 June 2020, took the form of a fundraiser for Black liberation. The fundraiser was hosted by Akwugo Emejulu and featured Che Gossett, Helena Rubinstein, Ru Kaur, Olufemi and Amrit Wilson in conversation.

Art

Olufemi is a member of "bare minimum", an interdisciplinary, anti-work arts collective. She has been commissioned by

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

to run a feminist workshop as part of a Feminist Library event.

Influences

Olufemi cites several key feminist, trans-inclusive, and

Black feminist Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that lack women'sliberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because our need as human persons for autonomy." Race, gen ...

thinkers and collectives that have influenced her, in interviews and her writing, including:

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...

, Ann Oakley,

Assata Shakur Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron; July 16, 1947; also married name, JoAnne Chesimard) is an American political activist who was a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 1977, she was convicted in the first-degree murder ...

Audre Lorde Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...

, the Brixton Black Women's Group, the

British Black Panthers The British Black Panthers (BBP) or the British Black Panther movement (BPM) was a Black Power organisation in the United Kingdom that fought for the rights of black people and racial minorities in the country. The BBP were inspired by the US ...

, Claudia Jones, the

Combahee River Collective The Combahee River Collective ( ) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. Marable, Manning; Leith Mullings (eds), ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal'', Combahee ...

, Gail Lewis, the Grunwick Strikers, Judith Butler,

Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors ...

Liz Obi Elizabeth Obi is a British activist who was involved in the feminist, black nationalist, and squatters' rights campaigns of the 1970s. A close friend of Olive Morris, in 2009 she founded the Remembering Olive Collective, which researches and docu ...

, Olive Morris, OWAAD, Saidya Hartman, Stella Dadzie,

Shulamith Firestone Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Firestone (born Feuerstein; January 7, 1945 – August 28, 2012) was a Canadian-American radical feminist writer and activist. Firestone was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism and second-w ...

Silvia Federici Silvia Federici (born in Parma, Italy, 1942) is a scholar, teacher, and feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She al ...

Selma James Selma James (born Selma Deitch; formerly Weinstein; August 15, 1930) is an American writer, and feminist and social activist who is co-author of the women's movement book ''The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community'' (with Mariarosa ...

, the

Young Lords The Young Lords, also known as the Young Lords Organization (YLO) or Young Lords Party (YLP), was a Chicago-based street gang that became a civil and human rights organization. The group aims to fight for neighborhood empowerment and self-det ...

, and

Sylvia Wynter ''The Honourable'' Sylvia Wynter, O.J. ( Holguín, Cuba, 11 May 1928) is a Jamaican novelist, /sup> dramatist, /sup> critic, philosopher, and essayist. /sup> Her work combines insights from the natural sciences, the humanities, art, and anti-c ...

Bibliography

* ''A FLY Girl's Guide to University: Being a Woman of Colour at Cambridge and Other Institutions of Power and Elitism'' (Verve Poetry Press, 2019), edited with Odelia Younge, Waithera Sebatindira, and Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan. * ''Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power'' (

Pluto Press Pluto Press is a British independent book publisher based in London, founded in 1969. Originally, it was the publishing arm of the International Socialists (today known as the Socialist Workers Party), until it changed hands and was replaced ...

, 2020). *''Red'', shortlisted for the 2020 Queen Mary ''

Wasafiri ''Wasafiri'' is a quarterly British literary magazine covering international contemporary writing. Founded in 1984, the magazine derives its name from a Swahili word meaning "travellers" that is etymologically linked with the Arabic word " safa ...

'' New Writing Prize in the Fiction category. *''Experiments in Imagining Otherwise'' (Hajar Press, 2021).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olufemi, Lola Living people 1996 births Alumni of Selwyn College, Cambridge Black British women writers People from Edmonton, London English feminists English people of Nigerian descent