The novel is set in a town aptly named He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-An-Idiot. As the name suggests, everyone in this town is drunk on something so much so that being sober (drinking water) is the exception. It is a town characterised by drunkenness, crime, prostitution, violence, and general social and economic instability.

Who is willing to teach the youth that tribalism has no place in the making of a united nation? How will our young people know that leadership positions should not be determined by one’s ancestry or the depth of their pockets?

The story of Ezi and Mma reminds us that mothers are unrivaled in their love and desire to tend to their children; that they will sacrifice their own lives if they have to if only to see their children safe and happy.

This book reveals that although South Asians may occupy an “in-between” space in Kenya, journalists of this heritage have played a major role in the making of this nation.

Human beings often experience prejudice of one form or the other but each person deals with it differently depending on personality, exposure, or the circumstances in which one finds oneself.

About a week ago, Kenya police officers arrested 41 foreigners (22 Chinese and 19 Taiwanese) who were found setting up communication equipment in a house in Runda.

It is one year since the Garissa University terror attack in which 148 young men and women, both students and security officers, were senselessly killed.

There are very few African novels that openly proclaim their feminism in the manner that Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter does.

Embu residents are up in arms over an attempt to increase male circumcision charges in public hospitals.

Africans are hungry for employment, democracy, honourable leadership, freedom, peace, justice, education, healthcare, equity in allocation of national resources and unity.

Five years since the war in Syria escalated, there does not seem to be any signs that the crisis will end soon.

A few weeks ago it was reported that Chief Justice Willy Mutunga had said that Kenya has become a bandit economy — that Kenya is under the grip of mafia-like cartels and if we do not fight them we will become their slaves.

Where did we go wrong as a society? What drives these young people into crime? How can a person who seems intelligent or reasonable suddenly change and become a criminal? Indeed, what ails the Kenyan youth?

Uganda goes to the polls on February 18, 2016 to decide who their leaders for the next five years will be.

Conflicts have been part of Africa for a long time. Currently there are conflicts, rebellions or civil unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan

A literary elder has gone to join her peers in the land from which no one returns.

In the past few months, there have been very worrying reports about students engaging in alcohol, group sex and truancy.

The unending state of lawlessness and instability in Somalia has seen desperate citizens seek refuge in many parts of the world.

Medical practitioners are often very busy people. Most times they are in hospital consulting rooms listening to patients’ tribulations or rushing from one ward to another to attend to patients.

The word saint evokes in us expectations of piety, kindness, love, honesty, integrity, and other such terms associated with virtue.

The current migrant crisis in Europe should be a concern not just to European countries to which the immigrants are running but to all other countries especially in Africa.

As women in leadership and civil society agitate for increased representation of women through legislation, another group is raising its voice in a different forum — art.

An honest and critical look at Kenya today would reveal that our moral, social, cultural, political, and economic fabric is utterly dismembered. News about all sectors of our nation is often negative and citizens are overwhelmed by the immense sense of dysfunction.

Reading autobiographies is always exciting as one gets to hear the real story from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the end of the apartheid system in South Africa.

A few weeks ago, a number of NGOs in Kenya were deregistered after they were found to have contravened rules governing such organisations. Many were ‘briefcase’ NGOs whose mandate, source of funding and activities were suspicious.

Last week, Kenyans were treated to an entertaining circus when our honourable Members of Parliament ended the year in style

It is Christmas, yet again, and many people the world over are working overtime to prepare for the holidays. Businesses are busy as shoppers overwork their wallets and credit cards to ensure that their families and friends receive the best gifts.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the father of Anglophone Kenyan literature, did not win the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature, again.

This month, Kenyans remember the atrocious terrorist attack at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi where 67 died, hundreds injured and property worth millions destroyed.

This year marks the 20th anniversary since the genocide in Rwanda when millions of people lost their lives, scores were maimed, thousands displaced while property was destroyed.

Kenya is undergoing massive change as the new Constitution is implemented and citizens learn to live with devolution. In this kind of political environment it is important conversations on governance be held in a language common to all people.

Plays in Six and the City darkly and starkly remind you about precariousness of life in capital.

There is something stimulating watching a play in one’s mothertongue. Last Saturday, I watched a play in Gikuyu, Horera Irurume, at the Kenya National Theatre. The play ran from May 1 to 4, with nine shows in total.

Clan conflicts in Moyale; tribal conflicts in Nyakach; bomb attacks in Westgate and Likoni; grenade attacks in Eastleigh…. What, pray, has become of our society?

“Regrow our Si-mot and always move with it if you want to survive” are the words the elders tell one young man on the eve of his initiation into manhood.

The name Wanjiku is often mentioned by Kenyans, not in reference to a common name for females among the Agikuyu, but to mean ordinary Kenyans. The term was coined by former President Daniel arap Moi in the late 1990s in a debate regarding constitutional review. Politicians, activists and the civil society movement were agitating not just for the constitution to be reviewed but for the review to be people-driven where Kenyans’ views were to be collected and incorporated in the new constitution.

Thoughts of night running usually evoke images of scrawny men and women running about the village naked, throwing pebbles on their neighbours’ roofs and banging their doors. No self-respecting night runner allows themselves to be seen, or to have dawn appear when they are still going about their business.

Many Kenyans who consider themselves book lovers will confess that most of the literature they read is in prose.

On December 6, 2013 the world woke up to the sad news of the demise of Nelson Mandela, arguably one of the most respected figures of our times. Mandela has always cut a godlike image, especially for black South Africans and Africans.