The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a novel by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, published in 1952 in Britain by Faber and Faber and in 1953 in the United States by Grove Press; it is often described as the first African novel published in English outside Africa. Written in a distinctive, modified form of English shaped by Yoruba speech patterns, it follows an unnamed palm-wine drinker on a quest into the land of the dead to bring back his deceased palm-wine tapster, drawing its episodic, fantastical structure directly from Yoruba oral folktale traditions. Though early reviewers in both Britain and Nigeria were divided on it, the novel is now regarded as a pioneering and foundational text of the African literary canon for building a literary form out of oral storytelling rather than European realism.
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Original Language Composed, From (Year) FAQs
Why does the English of The Palm-Wine Drinkard sound so unusual?
Its voice blends West African oral tradition with the British English Tutuola learned at school.
The book is narrated in a voice that mixes West African oral traditions with the colonial British English that Amos Tutuola learned at school. It also draws on Yoruba folklore,.
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Source The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Wikipedia)
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Source The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Wikipedia)tier 2
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1. The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead section, first sentence
The Palm-Wine Drinkard...is a novel published in 1952 by the Nigerian author Amos Tutuola.
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is a novel published in 1952 by the Nigerian author Amos Tutuola.
Lead paragraph
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.
In Genre: The Novel, Lead section
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.
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