One 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.

I can edit into infinity. It's such a joy. I'd probably edit until the last word. Until there's only one word left.

Every Kenyan writer has offered me something to hold onto, something to believe in.

I do need to find inner tranquillity and get into a "zone" before I switch on the computer to work on a story. Only after this do I enter the story world, where I meet the characters and, together, we work through the day and night.

Even if you're in charge of the grand story there's still memory. The other stories do not go away.

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

Kenya is an immense land with a capacity for healing.