Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora

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.