Petals of Blood repeatedly mentions William Shakespeare (1564–1616). In particular, a minor antagonist quotes from Shakespeare’s play
The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596 – 1598), while a major antagonist, Chui, quotes at length from Shakespeare’s play
Troilus and Cressida (1602). In
Petals of Blood, Shakespeare’s plays represent the imposition of English literature upon Kenyan students, who want to read African literatures and other literature more relevant to their personal and historical context. In a contrasting fashion, the novel also mentions
God’s Bits of Wood (1962) the English translation of Senegalese author Ousmane Sembène’s 1960 French-language novel
Les bouts de bois de Dieu. This novel represents Senegalese resistance to French colonialism. By representing a politically engaged Kenyan student reading this novel in
Petals of Blood, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o may be suggesting both that
God’s Bits of Wood inspired his own work and that Ousmane Sembène is a more appropriate author for African students to read than William Shakespeare. Like
Petals of Blood, the first three novels written by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o represent elements of Kenya’s colonization by and independence from England, whether it be Kenyan culture under British rule as in
The River Between (1965) or the fight for Kenyan independence as in
Weep Not, Child (1964) and
A Grain of Wheat (1967). Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s younger Kenyan contemporary Meja Mwangi has also written repeatedly about the Kenyan fight for independence in the Mau Mau Rebellion (1952–1960), as in his novels
Carcase for Hounds (1974) and
The Mzungu Boy (1990). Finally, as Ugandan author Moses Isegawa writes in a glowing introduction for the Penguin Classics edition of
Petals of Blood, it seems possible that Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s work influenced Isegawa’s novels
The Abyssinian Chronicles (1998) and
Snakepit (2004), both of which are set in Uganda after it gained independence from British colonial rule.