After coming out on Saturday, Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina has released a witty and incisive YouTube documentary called We Must Free Our Imaginations.
In the context of a wave of anti-gay legislation sweeping the African continent, Wainaina was hailed for his bravery when he revealed his sexual preference in an article entitled “I am a homosexual, mum”, dubbed the “lost chapter” from his memoir One Day I Will Write About This Place.
In part one of his YouTube documentary, “Bring Me the Obedient Children”, Wainaina bemoans the lack of African science fiction, and plays with the discourse of queer theory, recalling how any challenge made to the British-imposed syllabus while he was at school in Kenya was labeled “queer behaviour”.
Wainaina goes on to insist that it is just this sort of behaviour that Africa needs to fight the “bankruptcy of imagination” and begin to create what he calls “new things”; seeming to suggest that the current homophobic mood in Africa is as detrimental to the continent’s development as colonialism was.
The short documentary has been uploaded to YouTube in six parts, which Wainaina tweeted links to last night, calling it: “what I have to say about being gay”:
Click here to view the embedded video.
- Not playing? Watch on YouTube
Click here to view the embedded video.
- Not playing? Watch on YouTube
Click here to view the embedded video.
- Not playing? Watch on YouTube
Click here to view the embedded video.
- Not playing? Watch on YouTube
Click here to view the embedded video.
- Not playing? Watch on YouTube
Click here to view the embedded video.
- Not playing? Watch on YouTube
Book details
- One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina
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EAN: 9781847080219
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