It may not seem that way, but I am an absolute optimist, an unrepentant optimist.

Dying away from home, away from the soil of your birth - and to do so unseen and unmourned - is a profound horror.

Burma evoked the lost Kenyan soldiers who served in the war. You never hear about them. There were a significant number of casualties, men who never came back home. But they're never commemorated.

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

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

Kenya is an immense land with a capacity for healing.

Even though we've written epic poems and made incredible films about love, I still don't think anyone can understand what it is, or why it means everything.