I like the idea of readers feeling a familiarity, whether it's with Africa or childhood.

Living in South Africa and periodically coming back to Kenya, my relationship with officialdom in Kenya was just insane.

I'm extremely optimistic about rapid transformation and change of things in Africa in general.

When I went to live in South Africa, I immediately began to understand what went wrong. Because here was a place supposed to be under apartheid - I arrived there in 1991 - but here a black person had more say and had more influence over his white government than an average Kenyan had over the Moi government.

There is no country in the world with the diversity, confidence and talent and black pride like Nigeria.

It's like I was always not quite sure even how to move in space somehow; I would watch people and then copy them. I found it really hard to walk straight. My brother was always on at me for walking off the pavement. I guess I always expected people to bring me back into line.