NGUGI WATHIONG'O'S DETENTION

Abstract

The publication of Ngugi wa Thiong'o's fourth novel Petals of Blood in July 1977 was hailed as a major event in Kenya's young literary history. Ngugi, the country's best-known author, had not published a novel for ten years, and here a| last was Wockbuster, his longest and most complex work of fiction. The book was formally launched at a public ceremony in Nairobi by Mwai Kibaki. Then Ministry of Educa-tion officials were talking about adopting it as a prescribed text for the "A'"-Level School Certificate Examination. Booksellers in Nairobi had difficulty keeping up with the demand for the novel, and Heinemann East Africa luid to airfreight more copies from its London headquarters when supplies became depleted after only a few weeks. In short. Petals of Blood was a huge success, and the publicity surrounding its publication thrust Ngugu back into the national lime-light. July 1977 was pro-bably the supreme highpoint in his career as a writer.