Book Bearings
Cover of Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola

Palm-Wine Drinkard

  • 125 pages · about 2 hours
  • First published 1952
  • 5 editions

Bookshop.org links may earn us a commission. It supports independent bookstores and costs you nothing.

1 About this book

The Palm-Wine Drinkard (subtitled "and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead's Town") is a novel published in 1952 by the Nigerian author Amos Tutuola. The first African novel published in English outside of Africa, this quest tale based on Yoruba folktales 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. The novel has always been controversial, inspiring both admiration and contempt among Western and Nigerian critics, but has emerged as one of the most important texts in the African literary canon, translated into more than a dozen languages.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Nigeria
  • Yoruba (African people)
  • Wine and wine making

2 About Amos Tutuola

1920–1997

Amos Tutuola (Yoruba: Ámósì Tutùọlá; 20 June 1920 – 8 June 1997) was a Nigerian writer who wrote books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

3 More by Amos Tutuola

4 Similar books

Find a book that fits your moment