Amos Tutuola

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-27

Amos Tutuola was born June 20, 1920, in Wasinmi, near Abeokuta, in present-day Nigeria, to Yoruba Christian cocoa farmers; his grandfather held the title of Odafin, or lawgiver, among the Egba people. Despite receiving only about six years of formal schooling, which ended in 1939, Tutuola became one of the most influential figures in modern African literature. After his father's death he trained as a blacksmith, working for the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, and later held various jobs including bread seller and messenger before turning to writing. His literary breakthrough, The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), drew directly on Yoruba oral folklore and storytelling traditions, following a man's fantastical journey through a spirit-haunted land in search of his dead palm-wine tapster; poet Dylan Thomas famously praised the novel as "brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching." Following the success of his first three novels, Tutuola joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in Ibadan in 1956. His second novel, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), later inspired the title and thematic direction of Brian Eno and David Byrne's celebrated 1981 experimental album of the same name. He later held a research fellowship at the University of Ife in 1979 and took part in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1983. Tutuola died June 8, 1997, at age 76; his work has since been translated into at least eleven languages, and institutions including the Amos Tutuola Literary Society and the Tutuola Institute now honor his role in bringing Yoruba oral tradition to a global literary audience.

Universe(s)

Books

• The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) · The Palm-Wine Drinkard Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 1 book
• Award recognitions across all universes: 0 (None recorded)

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