Amos Tutuola

Nigerian novelist and short-story writer

• Born: June 20, 1920
• Birthplace: Abeokuta, Nigeria
• Died: June 8, 1997
• Place of death: Ibadan, Nigeria

Biography

The reputation of Amos Tutuola (tew-tew-OH-lah) has been the subject of much controversy. He began school at the age of twelve, was trained as a blacksmith, and, finding no opportunity for plying his trade, became a government messenger in Lagos, Nigeria. It could hardly be imagined that he might become a recognized author as a result of his daily habit of scribbling down stories on scraps of paper to abate his boredom while awaiting errand jobs as a messenger. Yet, perhaps by sheer accident of discovery and with some luck, Tutuola, an apprentice craftsman with no formal education beyond six years in missionary primary schools, earned the distinction of having written the first major modern African novel in English. Tutuola’s rise to international fame was marked by the publication of The Palm-Wine Drinkard in 1952.

The history of his achievement is extraordinary. Attracted by an advertisement from the United Society for Christian Literature, Tutuola worked feverishly on a draft of The Palm-Wine Drinkard. Clearly, the novel was unsuitable for this group. Yet it was provocative, and an intelligent reader saw its potential; it was sent to publishers Faber and Faber in London, whose editors agreed to publish it. The result established Tutuola’s career at the cost of much debate, which generally separated British and African critics. While Tutuola was heralded abroad as a naïve native genius (partly as a result of Dylan Thomas’s enthusiastic review in the Observer in 1952), African critics at home viewed the untutored bard as a literary burglar with little or no imagination. The basic argument was whether Tutuola’s natural style was brilliantly innovative or embarrassingly incompetent. Dylan Thomas called the novel “a thronged, grisly, and bewitching story,” and he admired its unusual style. Many Africans protested that Faber’s determination to publish the work without the usual editorial corrections indicated a patronizing colonial attitude that showed a preference for a childish quality in an African writer.

This debate, so impassioned for more than three decades, cooled with Tutuola’s subsequent publications. He came to be seen as a novice writer who did not meet conventional expectations but opened up a rare world, simultaneously original and naïve. The title of his first novel is indicative of the issues raised: Is “drinkard” an accidental error, or is the usage calculatingly ingenious in its subtle modification of the expected term “drunkard”? Regardless of such questions, Tutuola’s book achieved a fame he was not able to equal. After nine printings in the United States, it was translated into languages as different as Finnish, Japanese, and Serbian. It was developed into an opera and dramatized as a play repeatedly performed by the University of Ibadan’s Travelling Theatre, both in English and in a version using Yoruba, Tutuola’s native language.

The story tells of a “drinkard” whose phenomenal liquor supplies are cut off when his tapster, responsible for extracting his daily ration of palm wine, falls from a tree to his death. Driven by deprivation, the drinkard determines to follow him down to “the land of the Deads” and effect his release so that he may again serve his thirsty needs. This situation establishes that archetypal pattern, familiar in all continents, of the visitor venturing into the shades to rescue one whom death had stolen. The actual incidents are wildly imaginative, with the traveler experiencing punishments and excitements before returning with a healing and reconciling benefice to all in his village.

Tutuola continued to write novels in a similar vein. The pattern was the telling of Yoruba myth but in a manner that allowed him to incorporate a mixture of modern experience, Greek legend, Nordic monsters, and pure imagination into a unique narrative form. There are magic, bizarre transformations, and ghosts. One of the ghosts in My Life in the Bush of Ghosts has multiple television sets in her fingertips. The plots of all Tutuola’s books are remarkable and outrageous. The stories remain compelling and the language ingenious, though there is some sense of repetition when the novels are read in succession; the astounding originality of the first book is reduced to the expected through familiarity.

There is some evidence that in his later novels Tutuola exhibited greater facility and calculation in the way he handled structure and dialogue. Yet his was a natural, instinctive talent for the most part; if he had learned any more sophisticated contrivances, they probably would have undermined the ingenuity of this remarkable storyteller. Tutuola’s many honors included being named a Noble Patron of Arts by the Pan African Writers Association in 1992.

Author Works

Long Fiction

The Wild Hunter in the Bush of Ghosts, wr. ca. 1948, pb. 1983

The Palm-Wine Drinkard, 1952

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, 1954

Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle, 1955

The Brave African Huntress, 1958

Feather Woman of the Jungle, 1962

Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty, 1967

The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town, 1981

Pauper, Brawler, and Slanderer, 1987

Short Fiction

“The Elephant Woman,” 1956

“Ajayi and the Witchdoctor,” 1959

“The Duckling Brothers and Their Disobedient Sister,” 1961

“Akanke and the Jealous Pawnbroker,” 1974

“The Pupils of the Eyes,” 1974

“The Strange Fellows Palm-Wine Tapster,” 1984

“Tort and the Dancing Market Woman,” 1984

Yoruba Folktales, 1986

The Witch Doctor and Other Stories, 1990

Nonfiction

Tutuola at the University: The Italian Voice of a Yoruba Ancestor, 2001 (lectures; Alessandro Di Maio, editor)

Bibliography

Achebe, Chinua. “Work and Play in Tutuola: The Palm-Wine Drinkard.” Okike 14 (1978): 25–33. A perceptive article by one of Tutuola’s fellow countrymen and one of Africa’s greatest novelists.

Armstrong, Robert G. “Amos Tutuola and Kola Ogunmola: A Comparison of Two Versions of The Palm-Wine Drinkard.” Callaloo 3 (1980): 165–74. A useful source study and comparison.

Collins, Harold R. Amos Tutuola. Boston: Twayne, 1969. A standard introductory study, with chronology, notes, and bibliography.

Heywood, Christopher, ed. Perspectives on African Literature. New York: African Publishing Corporation, 1971. See the essay by A. Afolayan, “Language and Sources of Amos Tutuola,” which assesses the writer’s contribution to Yoruba literature from a Yoruba perspective.

Irele, Abiola. “Tradition and the Yoruba Writer: Daniel O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola, and Wole Soyinka.” In The African Experience in Literature and Ideology. London: Heineman, 1981. Irele’s chapter should be compared to Afolayan’s essay in Perspectives on African Literature (above).

Langford, Michele, ed. Contours of the Fantastic in Two West African Novels. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. Contains Joyce Watford’s essay, “Techniques of the Fantastic in Two West African Novels.”

Lindfors, Bernth, ed. Critical Perspectives on Amos Tutuola. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1975. An excellent source of discussions providing critical insights into Tutuola’s individual novels.

Onyeberechi, Sydney E. “Myth, Magic, and Appetite in Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard.” MAWA Review 4 (1989): 22–26. Often cited as one of the best studies of Tutuola’s masterpiece.

Owomoyela, Oyekan. Amos Tutuola Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1999. An excellent introduction to Tutuola’s life and works. Good for the beginning student.

Palmer, Eustace. “Twenty-five Years of Amos Tutuola.” International Fiction Review 5 (1978): 15–24. A good overview of the novelist’s career and his reputation.

Quayson, Ato. “Treasures of an Opulent Fancy: Amos Tutuola and the Folktale Narrative.” In Strategic Transformation in Nigerian Writing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. A sound treatment of an important element in the writer’s fiction.