Ngugi was born James Ngugi in 1938 in Limuru in the Gikuyu Highlands of Kenya. Like many of the dispossessed peasants in Petals of Blood, his father worked as a laborer on the estate of an African landowner. Ngugi's mother was one of his father's four wives, and Ngugi was one of about twentyeight children in the family. After his primary school education at independent Kenyan schools, Ngugi attended Alliance High School, an institution that had many similarities to his fictional Siriana, with its western-biased curriculum and Christian teaching. During his high school years, many of his family members were involved in the Mau Mau uprising and the resistance movement. During the struggle, Ngugi's parents were arrested and his stepbrother was killed by government forces.

In 1958, Ngugi moved to Uganda to attend Makerere College, the only institution in East Africa at the time that conferred degrees. While...