I come from a culture that has refined the art of the dirge to a sublime level.
Yvonne Adhiambo OwuorDying away from home, away from the soil of your birth - and to do so unseen and unmourned - is a profound horror.
Yvonne Adhiambo OwuorFor Kenya: we have a chance to start again each time we meet one another. The ghosts do not need to define the future.
Yvonne Adhiambo OwuorThe 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.
Yvonne Adhiambo OwuorOne day, I was running to the river. Along the way there was the most exquisite butterfly, a tiny little thing, on the pavement. I kind of jumped over it. And then two days later I woke up in the middle of the night with a character running, jumping over butterflies on the streets of Nairobi. After that, I followed the story. The story wrote itself.
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor