When bullets begin to flower: Historic June 25

Protesters demonstrate along Kimathi Street in Nairobi on June 25, 2025, marking one year since anti-government demonstrators stormed Parliament, an incident that left several people dead and many others injured.

Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group

When Bullets Begin to Flower is a collection of liberation poems from Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau written when these countries were waging armed resistance against Portuguese colonialism.

The poems speak of sacrifices and the painful human cost of struggle against oppression. The poems speak, too, of a time when bullets shall blossom into flowers of freedom.