Amos Tutuola - Early history, Writing, Selected bibliography, For further information

Novelist, born in Abeokuta, SW Nigeria. He was celebrated in the West as the author of The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), a transcription in pidgin English prose of an oral tale of his own invention. Later novels in the same manner included My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), The Brave African Huntress (1958), Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty (1967), and The Wild Hunter in the Bush of Ghosts (1989).

Amos Tutuola (June 20, 1920 - June 8, 1997) was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales.

Early history

Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1920, where his parents Charles and Esther were Yoruba Christian cocoa farmers. When his father died in 1939, Tutuola left school to train as a blacksmith, which trade he practised from 1942 to 1945 for the Royal Air Force in Nigeria. In 1946, Tutuola completed his first full-length book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, within a few days.

Writing

After he had written his first three books and become internationally famous, he joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in 1956 as a storekeeper in Ibadan, Western Nigeria. Tutuola became also one of the founders of Mbari Club, the writers' and publishers' organization. Tutuola died at age 77 on June 8, 1997 from hypertension and diabetes.

Despite his short formal education, Tutuola wrote his novels in English. His most famous novel, The Palm-Wine Drinkard and his Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town, was written in 1946, published in 1952 in London by Faber and Faber, and translated and published in Paris as l'Ivrogne dans la brousse by Raymond Queneau in 1953. Although the book was praised in England and the United States, it faced severe criticism in Tutuola's native Nigeria. The Palm-Wine Drinkard was followed up by My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in 1954 and then several other books in which Tutuola continued to explore Yoruba traditions and folklore. Many of Tutuola's papers, letters, and holographic manuscripts have been collected at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin.

Selected bibliography

The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1946, published 1952) My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954) Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle (1955) The Brave African Huntress (1958) The Feather Woman of the Jungle (1962) Ajaiyi and his Inherited Poverty (1967) The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town (1981) The Wile Hunter in the Bush of Ghosts (1982) Yoruba Folktales (1986) Pauper, Brawler and Slanderer (1987) The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories (1990)

For further information

Collins, Harold R. "Amos Tutuola" in Twentieth Century Caribbean and Black African Writers.