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Tutuola made was to "kill forever any idea that
Africans are copyists of the cultures of other races". Tutuola was seen as a "pioneer of a new literary form, based on an ancient verbal style". Rather than seeing the book as mere pastiche, critics began to note that Tutuola had done a great deal "to impose an extraordinary unity upon his apparently random collection of traditional material" and that what may have started as "fragments of folklore, ritual and belief" had "all passed through the transmuting fire of an individual imagination". The Nigerian critic E. N. Obiechina argued that the narrator's "cosmopolitanism" enables him "to move freely through the rigidly partitioned world of the traditional folk-tale". In contrast to the works of an author like
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continent of which they are profoundly ignorant". Some criticized the novel as unoriginal, labeling it as little more than a retelling of Yoruba tales heard in the village square and
Tutuola as "merely" a story teller who embellished stories for a given audience. Some insisted that Tutuola's "strange lingo" was related to neither Yoruba nor
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can afford his own tapster (a man who taps the palm tree for sap and then prepares the wine). When the tapster dies, cutting off his supply, the desperate narrator sets off for Dead's Town to try to bring the tapster back. He travels through a world of magic and supernatural beings, surviving various
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English. In it, a man follows his brewer into the land of the dead, encountering many spirits and adventures. The novel has always been controversial, inspiring both admiration and contempt among
Western and Nigerian critics, but has emerged as one of the most important texts in the African literary
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Well aware of the criticism, Tutuola has stated that he had no regrets, "Probably if I had more education, that might change my writing or improve it or change it to another thing people would not admire. Well, I cannot say. Perhaps with higher education, I might not be as popular a writer. I might
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took this criticism to its logical ends, stating that
Tutuola was "being taken a great deal too seriously" as he is just a "natural storyteller" with a "lack of inhibition" and an "uncorrupted innocence" whose text was not new to anyone who had been raised on "old-fashioned nursery literature". The
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was typical in describing
Tutuola as "a true primitive" whose world had "no connection at all with the European rational and Christian traditions," adding that Tutuola was "not a revolutionist of the word, …not a surrealist" but an author with an "un-willed style" whose text had "nothing to do with
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It was only later that the novel began to rise in the general estimation. Critics began to value
Tutuola's literary style as a unique exploration of the possibilities of African folklore instead of the more typical realist imitation of European novels in African novels. One of the contributions
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Given these
Western reviews, it is not surprising that African intellectuals of the time saw the book as bad for Africa, believing that the story showed Nigerians as illiterate and superstitious drunks. They worried that the novel confirmed Europeans' racist "fantastic" concepts of Africa, "a
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for the people of the other countries to read the Yoruba folklores. ... My purpose of writing is to make other people to understand more about Yoruba people and in fact they have already understood more than ever before".
255:"is the proud possessor of great magical powers with which he defies even Fate itself". The lack of resolution in the novel was also seen as more authentic, meant to enable group discussion in the same way that African
204:. In 1975, the Africanist literary critic Bernth Lindfors produced an anthology of all the reviews of Tutuola's work published to date. The first review was an enthusiastic one from
208:, who felt it was "simply and carefully described" in "young English"; his lyrical 500-word review drew attention to Tutuola's work and set the tone for succeeding criticism.
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not write folktales. I might not take it as anything important. I would take it as superstition and not write in that line". He also added "I wrote
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reviewer concluded that
American authors should not imitate Tutuola, as "it would be fatal for a writer with a richer literary inheritance". In
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The early reviewers after Thomas described the book as "primitive", "primeval", "naïve", "un-willed", "lazy", and "barbaric" or "barbarous".
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called the book an "unfathomable
African myth" but credited it with a "unique grotesque humour" that is a "severe test" for the reader.
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This article is about the work of
African literature. For the Kool A.D. mixtape of the same name, see
139:(subtitled "and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead's Town") is a novel published in 1952 by the
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251:, he added, in which human beings are the impotent victims of inexorable fate, the narrator of
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also defended Tutuola's work, stating that it could be read as a moral commentary on Western
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Rodman, Selden (20 September 1953). "Book Review of Palm-Wine Drinkard".
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The Blind Men and the Elephant and Other Essays in Biographical Criticism
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307:" list of 70 books selected by a panel of experts, and announced by the
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West, Anthony (5 December 1953). "Book Review of Palm-Wine Drinkard".
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Staff Writer (1 May 1954). "Portrait: A Life in the Bush of Ghosts".
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was widely reviewed in Western publications when it was published by
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told in the first person, is about an unnamed man who is addicted to
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tests and finally gains a magic egg with never-ending palm wine.
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Abiechina, E. N. (1968). "Amos Tutuola and the Oral Tradition".
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canon, translated into more than a dozen languages.
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781:Michael Swanwick discussing the book and Tutuola
745:Thomas, Dylan (6 July 1952). "Blithe Spirits".
591:"The Big Jubilee Read: Books from 1952 to 1961"
151:published in English outside of Africa, this
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529:
267:did. Tutuola was no more ungrammatical than
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646:. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press.
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16:1952 novel by Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola
691:(1968). "Tutuola, Son of Zinjanthropus".
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319:'s platinum jubilee in June 2022.
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376:, p. 10, 15, 22, 25, 77, 91.
811:Nigerian English-language novels
706:The International Fiction Review
727:The New York Times Book Review
214:The New York Times Book Review
21:The Palm Wine Drinkard (album)
1:
821:Nigerian magic realism novels
125:My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
315:in April 2022, to celebrate
241:West African Pidgin English
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218:the author's intentions".
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669:Lindfors, Bernth (1999).
642:Lindfors, Bernth (1975).
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700:Palmer, Eustace (1978).
816:Nigerian fantasy novels
806:Faber & Faber books
29:The Palm-Wine Drinkard
673:. Africa World Press.
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301:The Palm-Wine Drinkard
289:The Palm-Wine Drinkard
253:The Palm Wine Drinkard
136:The Palm-Wine Drinkard
826:Novels set in Nigeria
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303:was included on the "
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177:Palm-Wine Drinkard,
147:. The first African
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622:Présence Africaine
317:Queen Elizabeth II
313:The Reading Agency
198:Palm-Wine Drinkard
40:First edition (UK)
801:1952 debut novels
775:Books and Writers
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613:Works cited
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446:Rodman 1953
350:Thomas 1952
281:consumerism
269:James Joyce
73:Grove Press
790:Categories
716:20 January
629:: 85–106.
323:References
273:Mark Twain
458:West 1953
265:folktales
192:Criticism
181:palm wine
160:folktales
87:1953 (US)
85:1952 (UK)
64:Publisher
261:proverbs
185:narrator
141:Nigerian
56:Language
662:1583879
601:13 June
257:riddles
143:author
95:Nigeria
59:English
693:Busara
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296:Legacy
164:Pidgin
157:Yoruba
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46:Author
249:Kafka
153:quest
149:novel
100:Pages
718:2015
675:ISBN
658:OCLC
648:ISBN
603:2022
311:and
263:and
196:The
175:The
171:Plot
109:ISBN
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70:(UK)
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631:doi
595:BBC
309:BBC
271:or
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
