Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina shares his secrets
Binyavanga Wainaina is one of the most influential writers and commentators in East Africa.
He is credited with infusing the literary scene in Kenya with a new life through a magazine and movement called The Kwani Collective which encourages new writing on the continent.
Mr Wainaina is also a past winner of the Caine Prize for African writing.
His memoir One Day I Will Write About This Place has just been published.
He told the BBC's Audrey Brown, from our Network Africa programme, the tricks he used in it to bring the past into the present with the goal of creating "an immediate world".
For more African news from the BBC download the Africa Today podcast.