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Section 1: "Polepole" and "The Torch"

• The following version of this book was used to create this Lesson Plan: Minot, Susan. Why I Don't Write. Alfred A. Knopf, 2020. Borzoi Book Hardcover.

• "Polepole" is set in Nairobi, Kenya.

• It opens with a post-coital conversation between lovers; the man tells the woman, Daisy, that it is "Too bright to go out in" the "African noon," and urges her to stay with him in the cottage they are in, "right here."

• She replies "I don't even know where I am" (3).

• The narrative flashes back to the previous evening, when Daisy attended an engagement party with "Bragg," a newspaper bureau chief and her friend's ex-fiancé.

• Bragg had "taken her under his wing" two weeks previously, when she'd first arrived in Kenya (4).

• Bagg introduced her to "the man" [Note: he is unnamed throughout the story], who is one of his reporters, and invited both...

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