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In Sarah Ladipo
Manyika’s debut novel, ‘In Dependence’ Tayo goes off to study in Oxford
and encounters the love of his life in the person of Vanessa, a young
English woman. The story opens in 1963, in the heady days of
independence and optimism for the newly liberated nations of Black
Africa. By the novel’s close in the late 90s, Manyika has taken us on a
narrative journey of love and loss, age and regret; with the optimism
of independence having slowly wilted away.

“The title goes to
the fact that the book begins in the independence era. The political
implications are there in the story,” the author says of her novel.
Chief among the motivations to write the story, she readily confesses,
was what she saw as a dearth of universal themes like love in most
books being published by African writers. Whilst acknowledging that
stories of conflict are African realities, the author, a literature
lecturer at San Francisco State University, insists that war and
carnage, hunger and disease are not the only stories. So, she set out
to write a simple yet complex story about the need to love and be loved
– as writers the world over have done down the ages.

Capturing the era

The world of the
novel is an elegiac, romantic one of ships and postcards and letters,
symbols of a now disappeared world. “The sixties, seventies and
eighties were times when people wrote letters. That’s been eclipsed by
email now,” Manyika observes, while explaining that she used the ‘I’ of
the letter writers to bring readers closer to the characters’ thoughts.
“This is a novel that spanned a lifetime. I wanted the story to mirror
the evolution of the characters; as they are young earlier in the novel
and we follow them till they’re older.”

Among the things
that strike the reader about ‘In Dependence’ are the many eras and
milieus convincingly evoked in the novel. “I actually did a lot of
research. I wanted to make sure that I was true to the spirit of Oxford
during that period,” she informs. “I read all the student newspapers
for the years my characters were at Oxford. None of it made it into the
book, but it gave me the confidence to know that I could capture that
period in history. I did many interviews with old students, too.” She
also spoke to her own family and friends’ parents for not only
“contextual detail, but also a feel for the language, films of the time
and the music they were listening to.”

Telling Africa’s stories

The experience has
shown her that there is a wealth of stories of Africa and Africans yet
untold. “I feel that there are so many stories to be told,” she
reiterates. While researching for ‘In Dependence, she interviewed
someone who had been instrumental in bringing Malcolm X to Oxford
University in the early sixties; and who had corresponded with the
African American leader via postcard for sometime afterwards. “There is
a whole, fascinating history in that connection between those two
people,” she asserts.

Manyika talks about
the need to “overturn this power structure” that means only certain
stories about Africa come to the fore through Western publishing deals.
“Africa needs good writers, wherever those writers come from,” she
declares. “I hope more and more books will be published. I would love
to see a burgeoning of writings, more writing awards, residencies.” She
also hopes to see more Africans in positions of ownership in the
publishing industry.

Indeed, one of the
points raised early in ‘In Dependence’ is the need for Africans to tell
their own stories, for the continent’s stories not to be seen via the
constricting prism of Western eyes. Yet in a seeming contradiction,
Vanessa goes on in the novel to become a renowned journalist on Africa,
a white Africanist of sorts, telling the continent’s stories. Manyika
concedes that, “Any book is open to interpretation. At the end, it’s up
to the reader… All my characters are flawed to one extent or another
and Vanessa is no exception.”

Pan-Africanism

In the West African
Society in Oxford, Tayo and friends discuss issues including racism,
love across the boundaries of race and country, identity, as well as
power relations between Africa and Europe. Asked if the discussion
topics mirror her own concerns, Manyika is emphatic: “The writing is
certainly is not a voice piece for my thoughts. I am there in those
conversations to the extent that I care very deeply about the African
continent. Through the various characters, I am exploring the questions
that I’ve asked and that others have asked.”

A Nigerian of mixed
ancestry, Manyika has lived in Nigeria as well as in Kenya, among other
places; and is connected to Zimbabwe by marriage. One of her short
stories is published in the anthology, ‘Women Writing Zimbabwe’, and
she keeps a close eye on writings out of Harare even as she is a part
of the Nigerian literary community, albeit from the Diaspora. “It’s
really exciting to see what’s coming out of Zimbabwe,” she says of
wave-making writers like Petina Gappah and Brian Chikwava. “Because I’m
married to a Zimbabwean, I have extended family there and spend time
there. I feel connected in many ways. There’s an element of West Africa
in Zimbabwe.” To buttress this point, she cites Chielo Zona Eze’s
novel, ‘The Trial of Robert Mugabe’ that begins with the reference that
his first wife was Ghanaian.

It’s no surprise
perhaps that the novel begins in the sixties, the high noon of Pan
Africanism, with the likes of Nkrumah striding the length and breadth
of the Black world canvassing the dream of a united Africa. Manyika
hopes her readers will take something meaningful from ‘In Dependence’,
not least “that aspect of hope, that the original Pan-African spirit
will resonate with them.”

On women writers

‘In Dependence’ is
published in the UK by Legend Press and in a West African edition by
Abuja-based Cassava Republic Press. A blurb on the book notes, in a
complimentary tone, that “even the sex is well mannered.” Why has
Ladipo Manyika not gone with roaring sex scenes, as is de rigueur in
contemporary novels by Nigerian female writers? “Just wait till my next
book!” she jokes, then adds, “I personally find some of the most
enticing… a lot can be left to the reader’s imagination.” The allure of
many a romantic scene, she suggests, “is not about the roaring sex but
the anticipation of what is to come.”

The author feels an
affinity with fellow women writers. “I’m conscious of women writers.
It’s often a struggle for women to write because we have to juggle more
things,” she says. As a reader therefore, she is especially drawn to
short works by women, including Petina Gappah’s stories, Virginia
Woolf’s essays and the stories of Edith Wharton and Jhumpa Lahiri,
among others.

A constancy of themes

The themes in her
works reflect “ideas that are occupying my mental space.” There is a
constancy to the themes. “Africa is always there somewhere in my
consciousness,” she reflects. She touches on recent news headlines
about race riots in Italy: “African immigrants who have been used as
slaves by the Mafia – these stories aren’t really being told, they’ve
been subsumed.” Other preoccupations include women and ageing; and
identity – “This notion of who we are and where do we fit?”

Sarah Ladipo
Manyika did a book tour of Nigeria late last year, and was pleased that
she didn’t have to explain as much as she would have had to do with
European readers. “I feel that Nigerians are maybe able to engage with
the novel more,” she says with satisfaction.

The author is
currently working on a collection of short stories set in Harare,
‘Transatlantically Speaking’; and a novella set in San Francisco, with
women from different parts of the world as the main characters.

As part of the
drive to see more confident writings from the continent, she actively
encourages other writers, “due to my desire to read stories that
haven’t been written, because it inspires me.”

‘In Dependence’ will be reviewed in next week’s edition of The Lagos Review.