Of Karua, Orengo and Alice in Wonderland

Siaya Governor James Orengo and Narc-Kenya party leader Martha Karua during a past event. [Mbugua Kibera, Standard]

Between mingling with kith and kin in this festive season, I have been keeping the company of Winston Spencer Churchill (1874-1965). I have also cavorted with Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), with his Alice in Wonderland.

Emanyulia is my inviolable literary fortress. While it boasts of no great works, it is what Yasnaya Polyana was to the great Leo Tolstoy of Anna Karenina and War and Peace fame. Tolstoy spent precious time in Yasnaya, creating great literature. I spend mine in Emanyulia, admiring him and other greats. Some people must create. Others must admire.

Churchill's The Second World War is an eponymic historical literary tome. It was fashioned by one of the central actors in the 1939-1945 global human disaster. This great work contributed significantly to Sir Winston's 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature. The citation lauded Churchill, "for his mastery of historical and biographical description, as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values."