Early life and education
Okundaye was born at St George's Hospital, Tooting, London, to Nigerian parents and grew up on the Patmore Estate in Battersea. [4] [5] He attended Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Primary School and won a scholarship to Whitgift School in Croydon. [6] He went on to study Human, Social and Political Sciences at Pembroke College, Cambridge. [7] [8] [9] During his time at the university, he led the Cambridge Students' Union Black and Minority Ethnic society. [10] In 2025, he became a French citizen. [11]
Okundaye first caught the media's attention in 2017, after a series of post on social media about racism in the United Kingdom in which he claimed that racism manifested in all social groups. [12]
Following the coverage, Okundaye experienced racist abuse, death threats and rape threats. [13] [14]
Career
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Okundaye worked in policy, seeing his writing as a side hobby. He then quit his job to freelance as a writer full time. [15]
He has been a regular contributor to The Guardian , the London Review of Books , Vice , Dazed , i-D , GQ , the Evening Standard , and Bustle . [16] [17] [8] He has also written for NME , the New Statesman , British Vogue , The Independent , The New York Times , the Financial Times , Time Out , and The Sunday Times . [18] [19] [20] In 2020 and 2021, he had a column in Tribune Magazine . [21]
Okundaye is vocal about a number of social and political issues in the UK, writing about them from a left-wing perspective. He has written about topics such as race in British society, politics, the housing crisis, the monarchy, and Black British LGBT+ culture with a specialty in the experiences and history of Black British gay men. [22] [23] [24] In addition, he covers popular culture and media in the film, television, theatre, music, and literary worlds and has interviewed public figures. [25] [26] [27] [28]
In 2021, Okundaye co-founded the digital archive and podcast "Black & Gay, Back in the Day" with Marc Thompson. [29] [30]
Revolutionary Acts
His debut book titled Revolutionary Acts (2024), documents Black British gay history and culture from the 1970s to the present. [31] [32] [33] The book is structured around profiling the following figures: Ted Brown, Dirg Aaab-Richards, Alex Owolade, Calvin "Biggy" Dawkins, Dennis Carney, Ajamu X, and Thompson. [34]
The Guardian called Revolutionary Acts a "groundbreaking debut", while Bricks magazine called it "a dynamic and crucial narration of Black queer history for the 21st century". [35] [36] Revolutionary Acts won a Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. It was also longlisted for the Polari Prize for LGBTQ+ writers in the First Book category. Okundaye was one of several authors to withdraw his book from the Prize in protest of the inclusion of John Boyne over his anti-transgender views. Okundaye explained his decision in The Guardian, writing he "felt misled about the principles underpinning the organisation and I no longer cared to be awarded by it." [37]
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