Background
Sarah was born and raised in Nigeria. 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.
Her father met and married her mother in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s.
Education
Manyika studied at the Universities of Birmingham (United Kingdom), Bordeaux (France), and Berkeley (California).
Career
She has also lived in Kenya, France, and England. Sarah spent much of her childhood in Lagos and the city of Jos in Plateau State. As a young teenager, she lived for two years in Nairobi, Kenya, before her family moved to the United Kingdom. Her writing includes published essays, academic papers, book reviews and short stories.
Her short story "Mr Wonder" appeared in the 2008 collection Women Writing Zimbabwe.
Her first novel, In Dependence, was published by Legend Press, London, in 2008, and was chosen by the United Kingdom"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.