In Dependence

In the early sixties, Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. There he discovers a whole generation high on visions of a new and better world. He meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of a former colonial officer. Their story, which spans four decades, is a bittersweet tale of a brave but doomed affair and the universal desire to fall truly, madly and deeply in love.

A lyrical and moving story of unfulfilled love fraught with the weight of history, race and geography and intertwined with questions of belonging, aging, faith and family secrets. In Dependence explores the complexities of contemporary Africa, its Diaspora and its interdependence with the rest of the world.



Sarah Ladipo Manyika was raised in Nigeria and has lived in Kenya, France and England. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, and teaches literature at San Francisco State University. Sarah sits on the boards of Hedgebrook and San Francisco's Museum of the African Diaspora. She was the Chair of Judges for the Etisalat Prize for Literature in 2015, the first ever pan-African prize celebrating first-time African writers of published fiction books.

Her novel Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun was shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize 2016 and the California Book Award 2018.