I’ve been surprised by how many young people as well as people who are not from the African Diaspora have found this book an inspiration and a comfor… - Sarah Ladipo Manyika

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.

How could I explain that the way he craved my body made me angry.

Thank you, Darlington, and what a touching story! I’d love to meet your neighbor’s daughter. In terms of what inspired the novel, it was simply as Morrison once put it: If there’s a story you’re dying to read and you can’t find it, then write it. I was looking for a great interracial love story set in geographical locations and historical periods that I was particularly interested in—namely West Africa from the 1960s to present day—and because I couldn’t find that story, I attempted to write it.