Yvonne is a passionately patriotic Kenyan and the co–founder of the Macondo Book Society. She is also the author of the novels The Dragonfly Sea (2019) and Dust (2013), the latter was shortlisted for the Folio Prize. She won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2003 for the first short story she ever published. She first participated in the prestigious Iowa Writers Programme in 2005, and again in 2017, when she returned to teach the Autumn creative writing class at Grinnell College, Iowa, as a visiting professor. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s and other publications, she has been a TEDx Nairobi speaker and a Lannan Foundation resident. Yvonne lives at home, in Nairobi, Kenya.