I come from a culture that has refined the art of the dirge to a sublime level.

The truth, and nothing but the truth, is that dawn begins with a wrestling match with my soul and a systematic rejection of all the other useful possibilities a day offers. I make obeisance to the story, its characters, and the muse with burnt offerings.

The young readers I have interacted with carry old concerns repackaged in the skin of a new generation: puzzlement over continuous national moral failings, contradictions with the elders, nostalgia for a nonexistent Kenyan past.

I get turned on by the idea of an essence - finding the essence of the thing.

Recording stories is a way of honoring the faculty of memory, even if it's recorded, outsourcing memory to technology.

I don't think Kenya is the only country that tries to induce amnesia - it seems to be a global phenomenon. But offenses do not die. They do not disappear.

Novel-writing is a settling, lovely space. I call it self-indulgent - I feel mildly guilty about it.