• Dr.Nidhi

Petals of Blood is a trenchant critique of the national ruling elite, who under Jomo Kenyatta and his KANU cohorts, pushed Kenya literally into a neo-colonial state. Written in 1977, Ngugi wa Thiong ‘O points out how colonialism in its recycled form as neo-colonialism affected even more dangerously the life of Kenya and Africa. The black national bourgeoisie pursued and perpetuated a totalitarian system under the garb of democracy. And, it is their relentless pursuit of capitalism that has further widened the schism between the few "haves" and the majority of "have nots" reducing Kenya into a country of "ten millionaires on the shoulder of ten million beggars" (Ngugi, Writers 109). The novel has a close affinity with Fanon's classic article "Pitfalls of National Consciousness", where he had prophetically forewarned the national bourgeoisie of their neo-colonialist role in the emergent post-colonial nation states. The lawyer, one of the characters in Petals of Blood, highlights the systemic fault line, which the national bourgeosie embraced at the time of Uhuru:

NGUGI'S PETALS OF BLOOD: A NOVEL OF PRAXIS

"NGUGI'S PETALS OF BLOOD: A NOVEL OF PRAXIS", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.3, Issue 1, page no.57-60, January-2016, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1601145.pdf

"NGUGI'S PETALS OF BLOOD: A NOVEL OF PRAXIS", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.3, Issue 1, page no. pp57-60, January-2016, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1601145.pdf