Amos Tutuola revisited

"Amos Tutuola (1920-1997), the first West African writing in English to gain international recognition, is today regarded as an important ancestral figure in Nigerian literature in English, the liveliest national literature on the African continent. His The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), a folkloric fantasy spun from the motifs common in Yoruba folk tales, won fans for him in Europe and America but enemies for him in Nigeria, where he was accused of plagiarism and of being an inept handler of the English language. He went on to write more narratives of the same type - namely, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954) and The Brave African Huntress (1958) - and eventually won over his home audience. His honors range from winning the Grimzane and Cavour Prize (Italy) and awards from Pan-African and Nigerian cultural associations to being given honorary citizenship to the city of New Orleans." "Oyekan Owomoyela's study, the first full-length analysis of Tutuola to be written by someone from his own ethnic group, the Yoruba of south-west Nigeria, provides a knowledgeable overview of Yoruba verbal art, particularly the myths, legends, folk tales, and proverbs that Tutuola used in his writing. Owomoyela takes a thematic approach and comprehensively addresses the wide spectrum of criticism that Tutuola's writing has received."--Jacket.