The Indian Ocean, renamed « Dragonfly Sea » in Yvonne Owuor’s latest novel, is undoubtedly one of its main characters. This oceanic space is figured as a bridge between the tiny Kenyan island of Pate and huge and tentacular China, the expanse on which the characters’ paths cross and a behind-the-scenes space where world conflicts, global terrorism and trafficking take place. By rewriting Chinese admiral Zheng He’s expeditions to the East Afri can coasts into Ayaana’s – « the Descendant » – voyage to China, the novel seeks to replace Sino-African relations in their centuries-long history and within the interconnected oceanic space. By shifting the focus from the West to the East, the novel’s thalassocentric approach and its cartographic, genea logical and rhizomatic writing endeavour to reconfigure the discourses and representations that surround Sino-African relations.