Petals of Blood
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
A murder in Ilmorog exposes the theft of a revolution.
Structured around a murder investigation in the town of Ilmorog, it follows four characters whose lives reveal how independent Kenya's elite betrayed the peasants and workers who fought for freedom. Ngugi's fullest Marxist indictment of neocolonial capitalism, its publication preceded his detention without trial. It set a template for committed East African fiction that turned from colonial grievance to the failures of the new African state.
Its legacy. Its politics led to Ngugi's imprisonment and exile.
- Author
- Ngugi wa Thiong'o
- First published
- 1977
- Genre
- Novel
- Theme
- East, Southern and North African Literature
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