Between Starshine and Clay

'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 LaureatesToni Morrison andWole Soyinka, and civic leaders first ladyMichelle Obama andSenator Cory Booker.

She searches for truth with poetClaudia Rankine and historianHenry Louis Gates, Jr. She discusses race and gender with South African filmmakerXoliswa Sithole and American actor and playwrightAnna Deavere Smith. She interrogates the world around us with pioneering publisherMargaret Busby, parliamentarianLord Michael Hastings and civil rights activistPastor 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 friendMrs 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.