Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.

I'm writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.

Another phenomenon developing in Kenya is ethnic cleansing - and that's the thing that has made me very sad. Because some people will use the cover of the problems of rigged elections to do things that are unacceptable like ethnic cleansing and displacement of people. It's completely unacceptable.

In terms of language, English is very dominant vis-Ã-vis African language. That in itself is a power relationship - between languages and communities - because the English language is a determinant of the ladder to achievement.

If a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community - then they begin to see through their language that the problems described there are the same as the problems they are having. They can identify with characters from another language group.

What's good about writing is that when you write novels or fiction, people can see that the problems in one region are similar to problems in another region.

I think a repressive regime always fears people who are awakened - particularly ordinary people. If they are awakened, I think governments all over the world feel uncomfortable about that; they want to be in control. They want to be the ones telling people: "This is what we have done in history" but when people begin to say, "No this is what we have done in history" it's a different thing.