Petals of Blood

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is a Kenyan author and essayist who writes frequently about the people of Africa and their oppression under colonialism and neocolonialism after their freedom from European control. As a firm believer in the advancement of Kenyan culture, Petals of Blood was his last novel written in English, and he chose instead to write future novels in his native Gikuyu. He published his play Ngaahika Ndeenda in 1977 and was subsequently imprisoned for a year due to its critique of the Kenyan government. After this, he fled Kenya for the United States. He currently teaches comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine.

Ngũgĩ is one of the leading theorists in the field of postcolonial studies, particularly in the field of language. His nonfiction text, Decolonising the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), explores the idea of language as a weapon, both for the colonizer who imposes its own language on its subjects and for the colonized as a way to subvert the colonizer’s control. The problem of writing in postcolonial nations is complicated; writing in one’s native tongue subverts colonial control and encourages the use and development of their native language, but it is difficult to gain popularity and recognition—and thus readership—if one does not write in a globally accessible language.

Petals of Blood, although written in English, conveys some of Ngũgĩ’s most important ideas regarding neocolonialism and the advancement of postcolonial nations. The text explores not only the issues that these nations face such as corruption and poverty, but also presents potential solutions through Karega, who models appreciation for Kenyan oral history, resistance to oppression in the workplace, and the advancement of Kenyan culture while shedding its European influence.