The Palm-Wine Drinkard

Author: Tutuola, Amos, Soyinka, Wole

Fiction & related items

Published on 3 July 2014 by FABER & FABER in the United Kingdom.

This classic novel tells the phantasmagorical story of an alcoholic man and his search for his dead palm-wine tapster. As he travels through the land of the dead, he encounters a host of supernatural and often terrifying beings - among them the complete gentleman who returns his body parts to their owners and the insatiable hungry-creature. Mixing Yoruba folktales with what T. S. Eliot described as a 'creepy crawly imagination', The Palm-Wine Drinkard is regarded as the seminal work of African literature.

'Brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching.' Dylan Thomas, Observer'Tutuola's art conceals - or rather clothes - his purpose, as all good art must do.' Chinua Achebe