Bob Nyanja’s The Rugged Priest has definitely ruffled feathers in Nairobi, building its own swirl of controversy as it tells the tale of one of Kenya’s most hotly debated murders.

Braving the City Market butchery to make carnitas

For anyone with two eyes and an empty stomach, it’s obvious that Nairobi has become a kind of micro-heaven for greedy foodies with multicultural appetites. I spent the past year wandering the streets growing fatter by the meal, but as the days passed, like so many samosas down my gullet, I became increasingly aware of one massive, gaping hole in the Nairobi menu: Mexican food.

Sadu is a street-smart teenager who touts for matatu passengers but dreams of becoming a millionaire and buying a Lexus. Steve can’t come to terms with his brother Gordo’s death and doesn’t know how to relate to the dead man’s pregnant wife. Laurence walks away from a violent past but cannot escape the demons in his head.

Sometime last year, a group of 12 writers from different African countries retreated to Kenya to write. Nothing out of the ordinary in that but the fact that the twin bogeymen of many African writers are time and distractions made the retreat significant.