Every International Women’s Month, the world pauses to celebrate the progress women have made while also confronting the inequalities that persist. Literature often becomes one of the most powerful mirrors of these realities. Some stories capture the mood of their time; others travel across decades, continuing to illuminate the same struggles for new generations. Few Kenyan works demonstrate this enduring power as strikingly as David G. Maillu’s 1974 novel After 4.30.

Published barely eleven years after Kenya’s independence, the novel entered a society that was undergoing rapid transformation. Women were beginning to occupy offices, secretarial pools, and professional spaces in greater numbers. Yet with that entry into the workforce came complicated negotiations of power—between ambition and vulnerability, between economic independence and social expectation.

At the centre of the story is Lily, a young secretary navigating a workplace dominated by male authority. Through her interactions with her charismatic but manipulative boss, Nikolas Mukoko, Maillu explored themes that were rarely discussed openly at the time: sexual power dynamics, emotional manipulation, workplace harassment, and the precarious position of women whose careers were often controlled by men.

For many readers in the 1970s, After 4.30 was shocking. The novel circulated widely but was often whispered about rather than openly discussed. Yet what made it controversial was precisely what makes it important today: its refusal to sanitise the realities women faced in professional spaces.

More than half a century later, the story found new life on stage through a theatrical adaptation that introduced the narrative to contemporary audiences. At the heart of this production was Vivian Kabono, an actor, spoken word performer, and artist who stepped into the emotionally complex role of Lily.

In this conversation with Tracy Ochieng, Kabono reflects on the psychological weight of performing Lily, the surprising modern relevance of Maillu’s work, and why stories about women navigating power and vulnerability remain necessary today.

Could you tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Vivian Kabono, although artistically I go by Vivi Kabs. I am an actor, a beadwork artist, and a spoken word performer. I studied human resource management, although I’m not currently practising in that field.

I had the privilege of playing Lily in the stage production of After 4.30. 

Which of Lily’s lines stood out the most for you? 

There’s a monologue that I still remember clearly. Lily says:

“Trust no future as it is influenced by many circumstances.
To meet a man is not to win him. To win him is not to own him.
There are a lot of men to help you to destruction.
Woman, the tears are yours, not theirs.”

Those words are powerful, and performing them repeatedly made them sink deep into me. They capture the emotional awakening Lily goes through.

Lily is an emotionally layered character. Did stepping into her world stay with you even after the curtain fell?

Yes, very much. In acting, we talk about the process of “rolling and derolling.” When you take on a character, you allow their experiences and emotions to inhabit you. After the performance, you’re supposed to consciously step away from them, but sometimes that separation is not easy.

With Lily, I feel like I haven’t completely derolled yet. The character is emotionally intense, and some of the experiences she goes through resonate deeply with real-life situations that women still encounter. In fact, actors sometimes work with therapists or psychologists when portraying emotionally heavy characters because the boundary between the character and the actor can blur.

How did you first come to be involved in the stage adaptation of After 4.30, and what was your initial reaction when you encountered the script?

I have to thank my friend and author Empress Ciku Kimani-Mwaniki, who introduced me to the director. At the time, I was working on another television project where I was playing a CEO. I had also recently shot a series where I portrayed a woman dealing with grief.

Initially, the director imagined me simply as an office secretary. But when I received the script and began reading it, something shifted. Reading the script felt like stepping into Lily’s life. I enjoy reading and usually visualise characters in my mind, but this experience was different. As I read, Lily started forming very clearly in my imagination. The more I read, the deeper I went into her story.

What was it about Lily that fascinated you most?

Lily feels incredibly real. I loved her as a character, but at the same time, she terrified me, because she represents a kind of vulnerability that many women can recognise, even if they have never spoken about it openly. Lily was not written as a perfect or purely heroic character: she is complex, sometimes conflicted, and makes decisions that might appear questionable from the outside; when you step into her emotional world, you begin to understand the pressures she is under. She is trying to hold on to love while also trying to secure her future. She is responding to fear, hope, and the desire for stability. That humanity makes her deeply compelling.

In many ways, Lily represents the quiet dilemmas that women have faced for generations—the moments where personal dignity, economic survival, and emotional longing intersect. Playing her forced me to confront those tensions in a very personal way.

When After 4.30 was first published, it sparked considerable controversy. Did that historical context influence how you approached Lily as a character?

Yes, it did. Knowing that the book once had to be read secretly made the experience even more powerful. The themes it explores, especially around sexuality and power, were considered taboo.

As actors today, we are fortunate to have the freedom to discuss these issues openly. Performing this story felt like continuing a conversation that began decades ago but still hasn’t been fully resolved.

Lily’s relationship with her boss sits at the centre of the story’s tension. How did you interpret that complex power dynamic?

The boss represents power and opportunity. He can influence her career, send her on trips, or even promote her. For a young woman trying to build a future, those opportunities would have been incredibly tempting. But at the same time, there is danger in that relationship.

If Lily rejects him completely, she risks losing her job. If she entertains his advances, she risks losing herself. That tension is what makes the story so powerful.

Despite his manipulative tendencies, the boss is often portrayed as charismatic and even poetic. How did you balance those contradictions when performing opposite that character?

Yes, and that contradiction is exactly what makes his character so persuasive. He is not presented as an outright villain. Instead, he is charming, articulate, and deeply poetic in the way he speaks. There’s a common saying that men often fall in love with what they see, while women fall in love with what they hear. Nikolas Mukoko, in After 4.30, understands this dynamic very well. His language is seductive. He doesn’t rely on force or direct pressure; instead, he uses words—flattery, promises, and emotional appeals.

That is where the manipulation lies. His poetry creates a kind of emotional atmosphere around Lily, one that makes it difficult for her to separate sincerity from performance. Even when she is aware that he is a womaniser, his words still carry emotional weight. As an actor, I had to respond to that tension truthfully. Lily is not blind to his character, but she is still human, and human beings are affected by attention, by admiration, by someone who seems to see them deeply.

It’s fascinating that while the setting of the story is the 1970s, the romantic psychology it captures still exists in modern relationships. Today, we see similar dynamics play out in workplaces, social circles, and even on digital platforms, where language, texts, messages, and carefully crafted compliments can create intimacy very quickly. Charisma and emotional fluency can sometimes mask deeper intentions.

So when performing opposite that character, I tried to balance two realities at once. On one hand, Lily senses the danger; she understands that this man has done this before and will likely do it again. On the other hand, she is still affected by the way he speaks to her, by the attention he gives her, and by the possibility that maybe—just maybe—she might be the exception.

That push and pull is what creates the emotional tension in their scenes. Lily is constantly negotiating between her intuition and her feelings, between what she knows intellectually and what she experiences emotionally. 

Lily is also navigating a relationship with her boyfriend while dealing with her boss’s advances. Did that emotional tension shape the way you understood her choices?

Very much so. Lily is dealing with several emotional pressures at once, and that tension is what makes her character so compelling. Her boyfriend is preparing to leave for America, and with that departure comes a deep fear of abandonment. She loves him, but she also knows that distance changes relationships. She begins to imagine the possibilities: what if he meets someone else, what if he forgets about her, what if the life he finds abroad no longer includes her?

That uncertainty weighs heavily on her. At the same time, she is working in an environment where her boss holds enormous influence over her future. He represents opportunity—career advancement, travel, and the promise of a different kind of life. For a young woman trying to build stability and independence, that kind of power is difficult to ignore.

So Lily is navigating two very different emotional landscapes simultaneously. On one side, there is love—fragile, uncertain, and slipping out of reach and on the other side, ambition and power, embodied by a man who seems capable of shaping her professional future.

What struck me as I explored the character is that Lily is not simply naïve or reckless. She is human. She is responding to fear, hope, and the desire for security. Those competing forces pull her in different directions, and she finds herself suspended between them, trying to make sense of what she wants and what she might lose.

The final scenes of the story are emotionally heavy. How did you approach those moments?

Those scenes required a lot of emotional vulnerability. By the end of the story, Lily begins to see the consequences of the choices she has made and the pressures that pushed her into those situations.

On stage, that moment is about revealing how someone can slowly be drawn into circumstances where they feel they have very little control.

What do you think modern audiences take away from After 4.30?

The most surprising thing is how current the story still feels.

Even though it was written over fifty years ago, the themes remain relevant. Women are still navigating power dynamics in workplaces, relationships, and social expectations.

The story reminds us that these issues did not suddenly appear in the modern era. They have existed for decades.

And perhaps the real question is why we are still dealing with them today.

Final thoughts?

The revival of After 4.30 on stage reminds us that literature is not merely a record of the past—it is often a warning, a mirror, and sometimes even a prophecy.

When Maillu wrote the novel, he was capturing the anxieties of a newly independent Kenya where women were stepping into offices and professional spaces that had long been dominated by men. Through Lily, he exposed the subtle negotiations women had to make between ambition, vulnerability, and survival.

That these same themes still resonate more than fifty years later is both a testament to the power of the story and a reflection of how slowly certain social dynamics change.

As the world reflects during International Women’s Month, stories like After 4.30 remind us that conversations about women’s agency, dignity, and autonomy did not begin in the twenty-first century. They have been unfolding for generations—sometimes quietly, sometimes controversially, but always persistently.

And perhaps the most haunting question the story leaves us with is this: If Lily’s story still feels familiar today, how much has really changed for women in the spaces where power and ambition collide?

Tracy Ochieng is a staff writer with Books in Africa. Email: tracy.ochieng@ekitabu.com