* Amos Tutuola - Novels and Short Stories (11 books)

AMOS TUTUOLA (1920 – 1997) was a Nigerian writer whose richly inventive fantasies based in part on Yoruba folk-tales and mythology made him a success among a wide British, African, and American audience.  He had only six years of formal schooling and wrote completely outside the mainstream of Nigerian literature.  From 1939 he worked as a blacksmith and at other jobs until his first novel was published.

In THE PALM-WINE DRUNKARD (1952) and his subsequent novels, Tutuola incorporated Yoruba myths and legends into loosely constructed prose epics that improvise on traditional themes found in Yoruba folktales.  The first African novel published in English outside of Africa, this classic quest tale is written in a modified English or Pidgin English.  In it, a man follows his brewer into the land of the dead, encountering many spirits and adventures.  Poet Dylan Thomas brought it to wide attention, calling it "brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching", and the book has emerged as one of the most important texts in the African literary canon, translated into more than a dozen languages. 

Tutuola followed up his first book with MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS (1954), which reiterates the quest motif through the experiences of a boy who, in trying to escape from slave traders, finds himself in the Bush of Ghosts.  Another quest is found in SIMBI AND THE SATYR OF THE DARK JUNGLE (1955), a more compact tale focusing upon a beautiful and rich young girl who leaves her home and experiences poverty and starvation.  In this and the books that followed — THE BRAVE AFRICAN HUNTRESS (1958), FEATHER WOMAN OF THE JUNGLE (1962), AJAIYI AND HIS INHERITED POVERTY (1967), and THE WITCH-HERBALIST OF THE REMOTE TOWN (1981) — Tutuola’s rich vision imposes unity upon a series of relatively random events.


The following books are in ePub format unless otherwise noted:

* Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty (Faber & Faber, 2014)
* The Brave African Huntress (Faber & Faber, 2014)
* Don't Pay Bad for Bad (Cheeky Frawg, 2012)
* Feather Woman of the Jungle (Faber & Faber, 2014)
* My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Faber & Faber, 2014)
* The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Faber & Faber, 2014)
* The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Grove, 1953) – PDF (by Mohamed5438)
* Pauper, Brawler and Slanderer (Faber & Faber, 2014)
* Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle (Faber & Faber, 2014)
* The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories (Faber & Faber, 2014)
* The Wild Hunter in the Bush of the Ghosts (Three Continents, 1989) – PDF
* The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town (Faber & Faber, 2014)


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