Overview

Foreword by Bernardine Evaristo Award-w inning author and cultural critic Sarah Ladipo Manyika takes us on aremarkable journey across contemporary cultural and political landscapes as shetalks to some of the most distinguished black thinkers of our times, including NobelLaureates Toni Morrison and Wole Soyinka, and civic leaders first lady MichelleObama and Senator Cory Booker. We meet activists, artists and intellectuals who have been deeply involved inshaping the gripping debates of public discourse. With grace and energy, Manyikasearches for truth with poet Claudia Rankine and historian Henry Louis Gates, wholeads the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at HarvardUniversity (the world's largest such centre). She discusses race and gender withSouth African filmmaker Xolisw a Sithole and American actor Anna D. Smith. Sheinterrogates the world around us with parliamentarian Lord Michael Hastings andcivil-rights activist Pastor Evan Mawarire, who dared to take on President RobertMugabe and lived to tell the tale. Each encounter is incisive, powerful and erudite; together they represent a vitalgathering of ideas that speak to us all: on racial reckoning and decolonisation,structural and systemic inequalities, and the role of the artist, activist, and publicintellectual in society. Each conversation is also intimate and special, allowing fordeep insights into the complex issues discussed. While these are well-knownfigures and exemplary in their respective fields, Manyika's skill, warmth and uniquefriendship with each allow us to see the person behind their public profile. In journeys that book-end the collection, Manyika reflects on her ow n experience ofbeing seen as white in Nigeria, African in England, Arab in France, coloured in SouthAfrica and black in America, while feeling the least black and most human among herfellow travellers, explorers all, against the sharp white relief of the South Pole.

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9781804440193

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Reviews

The writing is crisp and un-showy, the storytelling immersive, and the characters are all written with sensitivity, showing their humanity. * Bernardine Evaristo, on In Dependence * In dreamlike prose, Manyika dips in and out of her present, her past, in a story that argues always for generosity, for connection, for a vigorous and joyful endurance. * Karen Jay Fowler, on Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun * If ageing be a lamp, then Morayo, the protagonist . . . is a mesmerising glow. Astute, sensual, funny, and moving. * NoViolet Bulawayo, on Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun * Like the dusty spines on Morayo's bookshelves, every character in this novel hides a vibrant, teeming inner world behind an unspectacular facade . . . Ladipo Manyika's book reminds us of the value of indulgence and delight - in sex, in food, in company, and in reading. * New Statesman, on Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun * It is a mark of Manyika's care for her characters that life and love so engagingly result in a hopeful union. * Akin Adesokan, on In Dependence * A big and elegantly told story of lost love. * Brian Chikwava, on In Dependence *

A must read...!!! * will.i.am * Extraordinary conversations with many of the greatest minds and most inspiring figures of our age. Each encounter framed and presented with enormous literary skill and grace. Together they form a snap-shot of the where the peoples of the Black diaspora stand, today in the early 21st Century, and how much has been overcome to get here. * David Olusoga, author of Black and British * Sarah Ladipo Manyika brings an intimate, eclectic, and delightfully startling freshness in this remarkably curated celebration of the African Diaspora. Her curiosity and ranging insights sharpens the genius, and the humanity, of her (already familiar) subjects, and our appreciation of them, and what an absolute joy to savor Between Starshine and Clay * NoViolet Bulawayo, author of Glory * What draws me to this work is what inspired it: A desire to bring Black voices from the African diaspora to the foreground. And Sarah Ladipo Manyika has assembled her subjects very carefully; each person in this book indeed conveys the power, strength and sheer diversity of the African diaspora. This is a one-of-a-kind book, a necessary and important one * Delroy Lindo * 'Even though Sarah Ladipo Manyika's medium is language, to read her Between Starshine and Clay is like seeing an animator at work. Little by little, we see her subjects taking shape, and then, with a sudden blink, we are being invited to participate in choices made, joys, regrets, and lives fully lived. A lesson in magic from Manyika's writing' * Ato Quayson * 'Sarah brings us an important book full of inspiring voices and leaders engaged in the most important issues of the day. It is an amazing collection that will inspire readers young and old' * Dame Vivian Hunt *

Author Information

Sarah Ladipo Manyika is a British-Nigerian-American writer of novels, short storiesand essays translated into several languages. She is author of the best-sellingnovel In Dependence (2009) and multiple shortlisted novel Like A Mule Bringing IceCream To The Sun (2016), and has had work published in publications includingGranta, The Guardian, the Washington Post and Transfuge among others. Sarahserves as Board Chair for the women's writing residency, Hedgebrook; she waspreviously Board Director for the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco;and has been a judge for the Goldsmiths Prize, California Book Awards, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and Chair of judges for the Pan-African Etisalat Prize.

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