As part of the exhibition Who Said It Was Simple, which marks the beginning of a year long cycle dedicated toPersonal Liberties, we invite you to the lecture: Talking about lost chapters with Kenyan journalist and writer Binyavanga Wainaina.

In 2014, Wainana deliberately allowed himself to enter the African hurricane, at a time the continent is dealing all at once with rapid economic change, an exploding cultural sector and many threats to the state of things. It is a thrilling time, it is a dangerous time. Nothing will be the same. He wants to be part of it. This year, chased by the winds of acting, of chasing homophobias, he will write at speed a book while looking to find ways to imagine from a place more accountable to an African reality that matters to him. This talk will share some of his thoughts, writing and experience of a year of hurricanes so far.

Wainana is actually in residence at Raw Material Company in the context of an editorial collaboration between Raw Material Company and Chimurenga Chronicle. He is the editor and founder of the literary journal Kwani ? (a Swahili phrase meaning "so what"). He won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002. In 2003, he received an award from the Kenyan Publisher’s Association in recognition of his services to Kenyan literature. In 2007, he was writer-in-residence at Union College in Schenectady, New York (USA), and in 2008 at William College. He has written for the New York Times, the Guardian, the East Afican , The Sunday Times (South Africa), Granta, Chimurenga Magazine and National Geographic. He is the director of the Chinua Achebe Center for African Literature and Languages at Bard College in upstate New York (USA). His memoir "One day I will write about this place " was published in 2011. In January 2014, in response to a wave of anti-gay laws passed in Africa, he made his coming out as a gay man for the first time by publishing a chapter of his memoir, "I am a gay, mom" which he describes as a "lost chapter" in his memory.

The lecture is introduced and moderated by Koyo Kouoh.