The Palm-Wine Drinkard: And his dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town by TUTUOLA, Amos; [NEWLYN, Walter & Doreen] - 1952

FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [126]. Original red cloth, spine lettered in green. Spine and boards sunned (latter, unevenly), gentle bruising and wear to spine ends and top corners, rear board a little soiled. Shallow denting to fore-edges of text block, POI in blue ink to POI: "Doreen & Walter Newlyn/ Ibadan. 23.12.53," offsetting to endpapers. Else, clean and tight. A continent-hopping copy of Tutuola's first novel with an interesting academic provenance. Good+ Amos Tutuola's first novel � a ludic, irreverent tall tale of weird encounters inspired by Yoruba folklore � immediately brought him to (divergent) critical attention, and rapidly achieved cult status, "creating its own genre, setting its own rules, and enthralling its expanding coterie" (Soyinka, 2014). Occupying a contentious position in the canon of African literature(s), The Palm-Wine Drinkard has been subject to various interpretations, from "an extended folktale in search of syntax" to a forerunner of magical realism, a linguistic experiment apt for a nation struggling towards independence to a science fiction novel.