Kenya is a mercurial character. I feel the country has a presence that can turn on its people in a very violent way.

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.

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

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

Matters of the subconscious affect reality in ways we don't quite realize.

Kenya is a mercurial character. I feel the country has a presence that can turn on its people in a very violent way.

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