Synopses & Reviews
The puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this fervent, hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. A deceptively simple tale, Petals of Blood is on the surface a suspenseful investigation of a spectacular triple murder in upcountry Kenya. Yet as the intertwined stories of the four suspects unfold, a devastating picture emerges of a modern third-world nation whose frustrated people feel their leaders have failed them time after time. First published in 1977, this novel was so explosive that its author was imprisoned without charges by the Kenyan government. His incarceration was so shocking that newspapers around the world called attention to the case, and protests were raised by human-rights groups, scholars, and writers, including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Donald Barthelme, Harold Pinter, and Margaret Drabble.
- First time in Penguin Classics
Review
"Ambitious, caustic, and impassioned." —
The New Yorker
"A mind-blowing political statement, an anguished cry of despair... a bombshell." —The Weekly Review, Kenya
Review
“One of our centurys great novels.”
—Tribune
“Ngugi is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a new direction for African writing.” —British Book News
“Striking.” —The Guardian
Synopsis
The definitive African book of the twentieth century (Moses Isegawa, from the Introduction) by the Nobel Prize nominated Kenyan writer
The puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this fervent, hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. A deceptively simple tale, Petals of Bloodis on the surface a suspenseful investigation of a spectacular triple murder in upcountry Kenya. Yet as the intertwined stories of the four suspects unfold, a devastating picture emerges of a modern third-world nation whose frustrated people feel their leaders have failed them time after time.
First published in 1977, this novel was so explosive that its author was imprisoned without charges by the Kenyan government. His incarceration was so shocking that newspapers around the world called attention to the case, and protests were raised by human-rights groups, scholars, and writers, including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Donald Barthelme, Harold Pinter, and Margaret Drabble."
Synopsis
Es’kia Mphahlele’s seminal memoir of life in apartheid South Africa—available for the first time in Penguin Classics Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1969, Es’kia Mphahlele is considered the Dean of African Letters and the father of black South African writing.
Down Second Avenue is a landmark book that describes Mphahlele’s experience growing up in segregated South Africa. Vivid, graceful, and unapologetic, it details a daily life of severe poverty and brutal police surveillance under the subjugation of an apartheid regime. Banned in South Africa after its original 1959 publication for its protest against apartheid,
Down Second Avenue is a foundational work of literature that continues to inspire activists today.
Synopsis
Es’kia Mphahlele’s seminal memoir of life in apartheid South Africa—available for the first time in Penguin Classics Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1969, Es’kia Mphahlele is considered the Dean of African Letters and the father of black South African writing.
Down Second Avenue is a landmark book that describes Mphahlele’s experience growing up in segregated South Africa. Vivid, graceful, and unapologetic, it details a daily life of severe poverty and brutal police surveillance under the subjugation of an apartheid regime. Banned in South Africa after its original 1959 publication for its protest against apartheid,
Down Second Avenue is a foundational work of literature that continues to inspire activists today.
Synopsis
The latest addition to the Penguin African Writers Series: the great Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongos powerful fictional critique of capitalism One of the cornerstones of Ngugi wa Thiongos fame, Devil on the Cross was written in secret, on toilet paper, while Ngugi was in prison. It tells the tragic story of Wariinga, a young woman who moves from a rural Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, only to be exploited by her boss and later by a corrupt businessman. As she struggles to survive, Wariinga begins to realize that her problems are only symptoms of a larger societal malaise and that much of the misfortune stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country. An impassioned cry for a Kenya free of dictatorship and for African writers to work in their own local dialects, Devil on the Cross has had a profound influence on Africa and on post-colonial African literature.
About the Author
NGUGI WA THIONGO is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and essayist from Kenya whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. He lives in Irvine, California.
BINYAVANGA WAINAINA has written for the New York Times, Granta, and Vanity Fair and directs the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists at Bard College. He won the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing and was named by Time magazine one of the Time 100: The Most Influential People in the World in 2014.