7/4/2014

Lauren Gantz on "The Palm Wine Drinkard" | E3W Review of Books

E3W Review of Books

Home

About Us

About E3W

Browse by Contributors

Issue Archive

Home >> Volume 8 (Spring 2008) >> Writing the African Imaginary >> Lauren Gantz on "The Palm Wine Drinkard"

ABOUT T H IS CONT RIBUT OR

Lauren Gantz on "The Palm Wine Drinkard"

LAU REN GANTZ is a PhD student in English

Originally published in 1952, Amos Tutuolas The Palm Wine

Drinkard holds an important place in the history of African
literatures. The late Oyekan Owomoyela, Yoruba scholar and

at The University of Texas at Austin. Her

research interests include twentieth century
American womens literatures and American
ethnic literatures.

author of African Literatures: An Introduction (1979) and Amos

Tutuola Revisited (1999), claimed Tutuolas novel as the first

M ORE BY T H IS CONT RIBUT OR

work of print literature about Africa by a black African. Given its

primary status, Tutuolas novel also marks the emergence of

Lauren Gantz on "The Feeling of

debates about what African literature should be. Western

Kinship"

literary figuresmost significantly Dylan Thomas, who pushed

Lauren Gantz on "The Chosen Place, the

for the novels publicationpraised Tutuolas unique prose style

Timeless People"

and use of Yoruba oral tradition. The exoticism of The Palm

Lauren Gantz on "The Brief Wondrous

Wine Drinkard made it a phenomenon throughout Europe,

Life of Oscar Wao"

where it was read in over a dozen languages. However, in

Tutuolas native Nigeria, the novel garnered more critical
responses. Tutuolas use of pidgin English, superstition, and a

M ORE F ROM T H IS SPECIAL

SECT ION

protagonist who claims to drink palm wine from morning till

Amos Tutuola

night led some Nigerian intellectuals to worry that the book fed

Rebecca Rossiter on "Blue Clay People"

into European stereotypes of backward and shiftless

Naminata Diabat Interviews Bernth

Africans. Despite this initial controversy, later Nigerian writers

Lindfors in "From RAL to Ira Aldridge"

such as Chinua Achebe embraced the text and encouraged

Rebecca Hewitt on "Ira Aldridge"

readers to reconsider the novel.

Ousseynou Sy on "The Henry Graham

The Palm Wine Drinkard

Tutuolas work depicts the travels of its titular character, the

Grove Press, 1993 (From the collection "The Palm Wine

the beverage, palm wine is an alcoholic drink made from the sap

Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts")

of palm trees, which must be collected by a tapper. Tutuolas

307 pages

protagonist has such a tremendous thirst for wine that he must

$16

employ an expert palm-wine tapster who taps over two-

Reviewed by Lauren Gantz

self-described palm wine drinkard. For those unfamiliar with

Greene Papers"
Gabriela Redwine on "Amos Tutuola
Collection"

M ORE F ROM T H IS ISSUE

hundred kegs of the drink per day. Unfortunately for the

Naminata Diabat Interviews Bernth

drinkard, one day his tapster falls from a palm tree and dies. No

Lindfors in "From RAL to Ira Aldridge"

other tapster can satisfy his thirst for wine, so the drinkard seeks

Neville Hoad on "HIV/AIDS, Illness and

the wisdom of the elderly in his village, who were saying that

African Well-Being"

the whole people who had died in this world, did not go to

Ousseynou Sy on "The Henry Graham

heaven directly, but they were living in one place somewhere in

Greene Papers"

this world. Believing that his tapster now resides in Deads

Naminata Diabat on "The Bernth

Town, the drinkard summons all his native juju, or magic, and

Lindfors Papers"

sets off hoping to find and re-employ the dead man.

Gabriela Redwine on "Amos Tutuola

Collection"

His journey, often marked by nightmarish encounters with

strange creatures, takes the form of episodic adventures that
gradually move him further from home. In the most significant
of his early exploits, the palm wine drinkard rescues a young
woman, whom he will eventually marry, from a family of

D ID YOU LIKE T H IS REVIEW?

SH ARE IT WIT H YOUR
COLLEAGUES!

Skulls that has captured her and held her prisoner. Together,
the couple moves into the bush country, crossing the borders of
various kingdoms inhabited by odd creatures, such as Wraith
Island, Unreturnable-Heavens Town, and Red-Town,
where they suffer numerous delays and hardships. When they
finally reach Deads Town, ten years after the protagonist
started his journey, the drinkard learns that his dead tapster
cannot return home with him because a dead man could not
live with alives. Disappointed, but given a magical gift, the
drinkard must make the journey back home with his wife to help

http://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/orgs/e3w/volume-8-spring-2008/writing-the-african-imaginary/lauren-gantz-on-the-palm-wine-drinkard

1/2

7/4/2014

Lauren Gantz on "The Palm Wine Drinkard" | E3W Review of Books

his people, who suffered from famine during his absence.
Early readers focused extensively on Tutuolas use of the English
language, debating whether or not it was appropriately literary.
While Dylan Thomas called Tutuolas prose a young English
and enthusiastically endorsed the text, Nigerian critics
considered it broken English that merely reinforced
conceptions of African primitivism. To be sure, when compared
to the works of other Anglophone African authors such as
Achebe or Wol Soyinka, Tutuolas prose does ring strange.
However, this reviewer agrees with Michael Thelwells
suggestion in his introduction to Tutuolas novel that the author
employs an English whose vocabulary is bent and twisted into
the service of a different languages nuances. As readers grow
accustomed to the prose, it becomes clear that Tutuolas is
neither a young nor a broken English, but rather a YorubaEnglish that operates with a rhythm and internal logic all its own.
This makes for fascinating read, and students of linguistics or
oral literatures would likely find this aspect of Tutuolas novel
fruitful for research.
Tutuolas Yoruba-English is also significant given that it speaks to
the blending of cultures and languages that permeates the novel
as a whole. For while most of the text has its grounding in
traditional Yoruba tales, there are also numerous moments that
reveal the colonial situation from which the novel emerged;
comparisons utilizing twentieth century military technology
such as bombs and planes, and references to the Christian god
merge readily with Yoruba-inspired spirits and deities. Writing
almost a decade prior to Nigerias independence, Tutuola
appropriates from various vocabularies as best serves his
purpose, crafting a tale that offers a glimpse into Nigerias
traditional heritage and its then-colonial present. While it has
been nearly sixty years since its original publication, The Palm
Wine Drinkard still proves a rich text for analyses by students of
African and post-colonial literatures.

Powered by Drupal

L OGIN

Copyright 2014, E3W Review of Books // Theme by Devsaran

http://www.dwrl.utexas.edu/orgs/e3w/volume-8-spring-2008/writing-the-african-imaginary/lauren-gantz-on-the-palm-wine-drinkard

back up

2/2