Review Of JAMB UTME 2017 Novel “InDependence” By Sarah Ladipo Manyika

THIS POST IS A REVIEW OF JAMB UTME 2017 NOVEL “INDEPENDENCE” WRITTEN BY SARAH LADIPO MANYIKA. INTRODUCED BY JAMB AS A TESTING BOOK FOR ITS GENERAL SUBJECT.

Prospective Candidates are to take note that English Language is a General Compulsory subject for JAMB, they will also be tested on a general text: “In Dependence” by Sarah Ladipo Manyika for UTME and “The Last Days at Forcados High School” by A.H. Mohammed for Direct Entry Candidates.

As usual we will be helping UTME Candidates obtain and Publish the book, Likely Questions and Chapter To Chapter Summary online once the Registration Commences, so keep checking back (bookmark this site).

But For Now We Will Be Focusing AboutThe Author And The Content Of The Book Below:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR- SARAH LADIPO MANYINKA

Sarah was born and raised in Nigeria. She has also lived in Kenya, France, and England. Her father is Nigerian and her mother is British. Sarah inherited her maiden name (Ladipo) from her father who was born in Ibadan (South West Nigeria) in the late 1930s. Sarah’s father met and married her mother in the UK in the late 1960s. She spent much of her childhood in Lagos and the city of Jos in Plateau State. As a young teenager, Sarah lived for two years in Nairobi, Kenya, before her family moved to the UK.
She studied at the Universities of Birmingham (UK), Bordeaux (France), and Berkeley (California). She was married in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1994 and now divides her time between San Francisco (where she teaches literature at San Francisco State University), London and Harare. Her writing includes published essays, academic papers, book reviews and short stories. Sarah’s first novel, In Dependence, was published by Legend Press in 2008. Her short story “Mr Wonder” appeared in the 2008 collection Women Writing Zimbabwe.[6] Sarah’s novel In Dependence was chosen by the UK’s largest bookstore chain as its featured book for Black History Month. In 2009, In Dependence, was published by Cassava Republic, a literary press based in Abuja, Nigeria, with a stable of authors that includes Teju Cole and Helon Habila.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK IN DEPENDENCE- BY SARAH LADIPO MANYIKA

“In Dependence” was published in the UK in 2008, in Nigeria in 2009 and in the US in 2011. It is Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s first novel. The novel begins in the early 1960s when Tayo Ajayi meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of an ex-colonial officer. Their story, which spans three continents and four turbulent decades, is that of a brave but bittersweet love affair.  It is the story of individuals struggling to find their place within uncertain political times – a story of passion and idealism, courage and betrayal.

 

In Dependence can be described as a love story. But it is more than that. It traces the trajectory of Nigeria’s political history; the military coups, the bad and treacherous leadership, and its renewed tentative steps towards democracy. It speaks to the demise  – in the 1980s – of Nigeria’s international reputation and the country’s rapidly destabilizing reality. It looks at the poor whose situation never improved but actually worsened. Using events in Tayo’s life, it describes the effects of misrule on the country’s universities and the ensuing massive brain drain that Africa experienced. Sarah Manyika achieves all this with a voice and an outlook that is truly authentic and objective. The author captures the mood and feel of different decades and the three continents – Africa, Europe and America – that serve as settings for the story. Its scope is vast and sweeping.

 

REVIEW ON THE NOVEL IN DEPENDENCE- BY SARAH LADIPO MANYIKA

Tayo Ajayi, a Nigerian, and Vanessa Richardson, an English woman, had their affair boiling when it started, but as circumstances were meant to intervene, the relationship went sore and it seemed nothing could ever bring them together.

 The book has characters that behaved in like-patterns, like in the case of Tayo’s friend, Yusuf, who had dated lots of white English ladies. He (Yusuf) ended up marrying a Nigerian Woman as predicted (Yusuf knew what he wanted and seemed to get it). Tayo also ended up the same way in as much as his affair with Vanessa Richardson had been gleaming, although his had been out of the mistake of getting a young woman (Miriam) pregnant. And talking of pattern, the novel’s beginning had opened up introducing Tayo’s affair with Christine, a Nigerian Igbo lady. One would think that Manyika had to end Tayo’s relationship with Christine for the sake of bringing in Vanessa into Tayo’s life, but still, Tayo had to end up marrying Miriam. And still the marriage failed, giving in to the familiar pattern.
Miriam in Manyika’s novel represented the breeds of the Nigerians that would always run away to live abroad due to the collapsing image of their home country. Miriam went away with her daughter leaving Tayo behind. In as much as she persuaded Tayo, he wouldn’t go. She didn’t like an inconveniencing life. She wanted the best life for her daughter. Tayo, on the other side represented the crude breeds of Nigerians that felt home was home even though the country was boiling in corruption. In as much as the failure of the country stared firmly at his face with daggers, he chose to stay. Towards the late pages of the novel he had to leave the country under threatening circumstances against his life from the ruling military regime.