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Sarah Ladipo Manyika
70 quotes
“In these tumultuous times, I keep returning to James Baldwin’s essays and in particular to his Notes of a Native Son. He reminds me of the importance of holding on to two seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time: staying committed to the struggles against injustices while keeping one’s heart free of hatred and despair.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a child, I was a voracious reader, of books and of people, and still am an inveterate eavesdropper and people-watcher. Snippets of overheard conversations and the faces of people not usually noticed often inspire the stories I write. Wondering about other people’s life stories is what I do.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Henry Louis Gates Jr’s op-ed piece in the New York times, Who’s Afraid of Black History? didn’t change my mind on the topic but it brought much needed perspective and insight to the current curriculum debates in the US.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“of course, they can be just as good or just as bad. They can be even better or even worse. Yet for me, experience outweighs any sense of risk.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think as I grow older I am more interested in what happens in the next stage of life. And I’ve been reading a lot of stories about older men.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I write for myself and anyone else who enjoys a good story and is eager to read about characters that are still underrepresented in literature.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The peripatetic nature of my childhood compounded my teenage sense of not quite belonging, nudging me ever closer to books in an on-going search for home.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a black woman who has lived in many countries, I am conscious of what it means to be black in different parts of the world.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the realm of a TV series, I think of Wole Soyinka’s political satire Chronicles From The Land of the Happiest People On Earth and NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory, which might also lend itself to an animated film. There are so many exciting prospects within the genre of documentary films too. Take Hugh Masekela’s Still Grazing—how visually and sonically fabulous such a film could be. I’d also love to see my novels adapted for the screen. In Dependence as a feature film, and Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun, as a TV series. Film broadens and expands our access to stories and opens many new possibilities for creative work.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The 1960s struck me as such an exciting decade in which to start the novel—it was the time of independence movements across Africa, the Civil Rights movement in the US, and various countercultural movements across Europe. Artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Fela Kuti and the Beatles were amongst many to herald this change. But because I hadn’t lived through this decade myself, I had to do a lot of research for In Dependence for it to feel as historically authentic as possible. I loved the research which included reading back issues of local magazines and newspapers and interviewing people who’d lived through the period.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t have a single best book, but I enjoyed and learned a lot from the following: actor David Harewood’s memoir: Maybe I Don’t Belong Her: A Memoir of Race, Identity, Breakdown and Recovery; poet Hanif Abdurraqib’s Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest; and travel writer, Noo Sara-Wiwa’s Black Ghosts: A Journey into the Lives of Africans in China. I also enjoyed re-reading Hugh Masekela and Michael Cheer’s fabulous Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela. I also read a number of great manuscripts including two brilliant chapters from my brother’s work in progress: Common Property: An Intimate History of the 20th Century.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never thought about the confluence of the two books in the way you’ve described it. I love it! This is part of the beauty of writing, being surprised by what others see. Yes, Tayo and Morayo would certainly have a lot to talk about–their relationship might even go further than a platonic one. Who knows! There are certainly thematic similarities between the books, especially around the notion of independence and interdependence. I also see a chronological continuation between both novels. I left Tayo and Vanessa at the end of In Dependence in their sixties and with Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun I moved to a character in her seventies. It would follow, therefore that my next book might feature a character in her eighties and perhaps some younger characters too. Which, coincidentally, at least thus far…is the way book three is looking.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh, so many things, especially the joyful moments that we shared. I remember, for example, the laughter between old friends Wole Soyinka and Henry Louis Gates Jr. as Soyinka reminisced about Morrison teaching him the phrase “knock your socks off” but then failing to deliver on the promise of knocking his socks off with the choice of a restaurant that Soyinka found lacking—not enough pepper! Or the moment when I asked Morrison if we could talk about sex, to which she responded with a wry smile, “Yeah! I’m in a good position to talk about it, since it’s been like a thousand years. What do you want to know?” Or the day, when walking with 102-year-old Willard Harris, that she insisted I seize the opportunity to travel to the South Pole, repeatedly saying, “You go, girl!” And so it was that the stories and the laughter flowed. I also love the adage that several of them cite, from Michelle Obama to Lord Michael Hastings, Margaret Busby, and Senator Cory Booker—plant trees under whose shade other generations will sit. Each of those featured embodies this evocation.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How I wish that Baldwin was still with us—he was so wise, and his work feels just as relevant today as it was during his lifetime. Baldwin’s presence is felt throughout this book in part because he meant so much to many of those featured, including Morrison. In Morrison’s eulogy for Baldwin, she refers to three gifts that he gave to her: tenderness, courage, and language. These are gifts that I feel he’s given to all of us, and of course Morrison has left us with similar gifts, too. A copy of Baldwin’s Collected Essays has sat close to my writing desk for more than two decades. It sits alongside Margaret Busby’s groundbreaking anthologies, Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa—my literary taliswomen.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You mention Abubakar’s wonderful novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms, and I can tell you that when it came out I joked with him that his fifty-five-year-old Bintu could hardly be considered an old woman, at least not in comparison to my Morayo, two decades older. However, I hadn’t yet met Willard Harris, a real-life character and now a dear friend whom I write about in my new book. Mrs. Harris was ninety-seven years old when I first met her, and at that time she had a “gentleman friend” who was at least a decade younger than her. You know what they say about life being stranger or more interesting than fiction.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that every relationship has its complications, and in the case of Tayo and Vanessa, they had to contend with the added family and societal pressures of being an interracial couple at a time of pervasive colonial attitudes. In the 1960s, there was a great deal of societal resistance to interracial relationships, attitudes that arguably still persist to this day whether in the UK, America, or elsewhere. If I’d written a novel without complications, I also suspect that your neighbor’s daughter would have exercised her spirit of independence and found a different book to immerse herself in.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m so grateful to Adichie for having written Half of a Yellow Sun with its focus on the Nigerian civil war. Her novel, alongside other books with the war at its core, including Soyinka’s memoir The Man Died, Chris Abani’s novella-in-verse Daphne’s Lot, and Chinelo Okparanta’s novel Under the Udala Trees, all give us a greater sense of the events and conditions of that horrific war. While the civil war is not the central focus of In Dependence, it forms part of the tragic backdrop to the story. In Dependence is deeply personal for me in that I am writing about my parents’ generation. This is not my parents’ story, but it could have been their story.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That’s a really interesting observation. You’re right that there are similarities between the two protagonists. Tayo and Obi are roughly of the same generation, they both win scholarships to study abroad, and they return to Nigeria full of idealism before finding themselves buffeted by some of the same issues and challenges of the day. What’s also interesting is that it’s Vanessa who urges Tayo to read Achebe’s novels. When Tayo does read No Longer at Ease, he’s struck by how tragic the story is but doesn’t, at least not in his letter to Vanessa, go as far as reflecting on how Obi’s story might be relevant to his own life.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The warmth that I feel toward Okigbo actually comes from hearing my father speak about him. In the late 1950s, my father was one of his students at Fiditi Grammar School, Ibadan, where Okigbo taught Latin and English literature and was also the sports coach. I suspect that my dad, the football team’s goalkeeper, might have been one of Okigbo’s favorite students. He recounts the story of how Okigbo came to him one afternoon and asked if he’d ever traveled in a car that went as fast as one hundred miles an hour. “Hop in,” said Okigbo to my father, and then proceeded to dazzle him with a speedy drive to the University of Ibadan in his red sports car.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My father describes Okigbo as a fast-speaking, fast-driving, fun-loving, and extremely intelligent young man. He apparently had a flair for languages, routinely reciting passages of Ovid in Latin, and tutoring one student in Greek who subsequently got an A in the Greek exam. My dad also describes how Okigbo, along with the school headmaster, Alex Ajayi, would have various “bashes” over the weekend. They were, as my father later reflected, a high-powered Bloomsbury Group of young intellectuals and scholars. These are stories I wish we had more of, and they’re part of the impetus behind Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source