We can appreciate each other's languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.

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.

Our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it; those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mould it and those committed to breaking it up; those who aim to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow [...] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes

It was a revelation for me, in a practical sense, that you could write in an African language and still reach an audience beyond that language through the art of translation.

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.

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.