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‘A must read…!!!’ will.i.am

‘Each encounter is framed and presented with enormous literary skill and grace’ David Olusoga

WITH A FOREWORD FROM BERNARDINE EVARISTO

Conversations with some of the most extraordinary Black minds of our age, discussing race, decolonisation, systemic inequalities, and the climate crisis.

In a series of incisive and intimate encounters, Sarah Ladipo Manyika introduces some of the most distinguished Black thinkers of our times, including Nobel Laureates Toni Morrison and Wole Soyinka, and civic leaders first lady Michelle Obama and Senator Cory Booker.

She searches for truth with poet Claudia Rankine and historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. She discusses race and gender with South African filmmaker Xoliswa Sithole and American actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith. She interrogates the world around us with pioneering publisher Margaret Busby, parliamentarian Lord Michael Hastings and civil rights activist Pastor Evan Mawarire – who dared to take on President Robert Mugabe and has lived to tell the tale. We also meet the living embodiment of the many threads, ideas and histories in this book through the profile of her fabulous 102-year-old friend, Mrs Willard Harris.

In journeys that book-end the collection, Sarah Ladipo Manyika reflects on her own experience of being seen as ‘oyinbo’ in Nigeria, African in England, Arab in France, coloured in Southern Africa and Black in America, while feeling the least Black and most human among her fellow travellers, explorers all, against the sharp white relief of the South Pole.

Publisher Review

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 * 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 * '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 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 * '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 *