Petals of Blood

Petals of Blood  ( First Published  in 1977) is a novel written by  Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o .Set in Kenya just after independence, the story follows four characters – Munira, Abdulla, Wanja, and Karega – whose lives are intertwined due to the Mau Mau rebellion. In order to escape city life, each retreats to the small, pastoral village of Ilmorog.

Quotes

 * We went on a journey to the city to save Ilmorog from the drought. We brought back spiritual drought from the city..."
 * Munira, page 195


 * Only two nights ago we all drank Theng'eta together to celebrate a harvest and a successful ending of what was certainly a difficult year in Ilmorog. It was a good harvest and you'll agree with me that such a sense of common destiny, a collective spirit, is rare. That is why the old woman rightly called it a drink of peace. Now it has turned out to be a drink of strife."
 * Karega, page 240.


 * I think...I am...I think I am with child. No, I am sure of it, mother."
 * Wanja, page 338.


 * Any talk of colonialism made him uneasy. He would suddenly become conscious of having never done or willed anything to happen, that he seemed doomed to roam this world, a stranger.
 * Narrator, page 18


 * Karega and his following of Theng'eta factory workers were not any different: they had rejected it is true mere brotherhood of the skin, region, and community of origins and said no to both black and white and Indian employers of labour. But they too would fail: because they had also rejected the most important brotherhood—the only brotherhood—of religion, of being born anew in the Lord of the universe and of the eternal kingdom.
 * Narrator, page 42.


 * For there are many questions about our history which remain unanswered. Our present day historians, following on similar theories yarned out by defenders of imperialism, insist we only arrived here yesterday.
 * Narrator, Page 67.


 * Christian, Commerce, Civilization: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity.
 * Narrator, page 88.


 * I believe we can save the donkey and save the community."
 * Karega, page 113.


 * I wanted to see this black man who was but a voice, a black power, and whose military genius was recognised even by our enemy."
 * Abdulla, 141.


 * A group started singing a few native cultural songs...And they would burst out laughing and clapping at the daring of their voices. There were also a few Swahili and English ones. It was a truly culturally integrated party and Munira lost courage. He merely stood at the door, eaten by indecision...
 * Narrator, page 151.


 * We must always be ready to plant the seed in these last days before His second coming. All the signs—strife, killing, wars, blood—are prophesied here.’

‘How long have you been in Ilmorog?’ asked the tall one, to change the subject from this talk of the end of the world and Christ’s second coming. He was a regular churchgoer and did not want to be caught on the wrong side.
 * Chapter 1.


 * They nearly all had one thing in common: submission to the Lord. They called him Brother Ezekieli, our brother in Christ, and they would gather in the yard of the house after work for prayers and thanksgiving. There were of course some who had devilish spirits which drove them to demand higher wages and create trouble on the farm and they would be dismissed.
 * Chapter 2.


 * But boys were always more confident about the future than us girls. They seemed to know what they wanted to become later in life: whereas with us girls the future seemed vague . . . It was as if we knew that no matter what efforts we put into our studies, our road led to the kitchen and to the bedroom.
 * Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.
 * We are all searchers for a tiny place in God’s corner to shelter us for a time from treacherous winds and rains and drought. This was all that I had wanted him to see: that the force he sought could only be found in the blood of the Lamb.


 * Kenyan people had always been ready to resist foreign control and exploitation. The story of this heroic resistance: who will sing it? Their struggles to defend their land, their wealth, their lives: who’ll tell of it?
 * Chapter 4.


 * can imagine the fatal meeting between the native and the alien. The missionary had traversed the seas, the forests, armed with the desire for profit that was his faith and light and the gun that was his protection. He carried the Bible; the soldier carried the gun; the administrator and the settler carried the coin. Christianity, Commerce, Civilization: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity.
 * Chapter 5.


 * Haunting memories from the past; the year of the locust; the year of the armyworms; the year of the famine of cassava […] uncontrolled nature was always a threat to human endeavor.
 * Chapter 6


 * They came for him that Sunday. He had just returned from a night’s vigil on the mountain.”
 * Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 3


 * The road had once been a railway line joining Ilmorog to Ruwa-ini. […] It had eaten the forests, and after accomplishing their task, the two rails were removed, and the ground became a road—a kind of a road—that now gave no evidence of its former exploiting glory.”
 * Part 1, Chapter 2, Page 14.


 * He had gone home, convinced that inwardly he had given himself up to the Lord, and decided to do something about his sins. He stole a matchbox, collected a bit of grass and dry cowdung and built an imitation of Amina’s house at Kamiritho where he had sinned against the Lord, and burnt it.”
 * Part 1, Chapter 2, Page 18.