The Palm-Wine Drinkard

The Palm-Wine Drinkard (subtitled "and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead's Town") is often considered the seminal work of modern African literature. It gained Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola acclaim in the West and criticism at home. The book was based on Yoruba folktales, but was largely his own invention using non-standard English prose.

While distinctly African, the novel bears some resemblance to the Magic realism works of South American writers such as Juan Rulfo and Gabriel García Márquez. In all of these works the tone is mystical and pre-modern, but told in the form of a narrative novel which is in essence a modern form. This contrast is a manifestation of the transition between traditional cultures and the global trend towards modernity.

The Palm Wine Drinkard tells the mythological story of a man who follows a palm wine tapster into the land of the dead or "Deads' Town." There he finds a world of magic, ghosts, demons, and supernatural beings. The book came out in 1952 and received accolades from Dylan Thomas as well as other Western intellectual figures of the time. However among many African intellectuals it caused controversy and received harsh criticism. In Nigeria, in particular, some feared the story showed their people in a negative light. Specifically, that it depicted a drunk, used Pidgin English, and promoted the idea Africans were superstitious. However Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe defended Tutuola's works stating the stories in it can also be read as moral tales commenting on Western consumerism.

References

External links

• About Amos Tutuola and mentions it
• Amos Tutuola biography that mentions it
• Michael Swanwick discussing the book and Tutuola