He takes great pains to place his narrative within lived and believable African experience that is more in line with science fiction than fantasy. Putting the debate of literary quality aside, TutuolaвЂ™s striking use of language is undoubtedly sublime, able to transport the reader in ways that are necessary and expected for science fiction. They argued no such English existed, even in a purely spoken form. But Nigerian critics were puzzled and even embarrassed by TutuolaвЂ™s use of English. Western critics hailed The Palm-wine Drinkard as inventive and avant-garde. Having matured on his journey, he is no longer a nonchalant drunkard and demonstrates his newfound sense of civic duty by bringing an end to a famine in his village. Marcoslampert/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SAД«ereft, the Drinkard returns home. The alcoholic drink is made from the sap of palm trees, collected by a tapster.ДЄmos Tutuola. The Palm-wine Drinkard introduces us to the Drinkard, who passes his time drinking palm wine with his friends. I suggest that the lazy appeal to African fantasy and folklore is in line with a longstanding dismissal of Africans as technological beings and, by extension, writers of science fiction. Science fiction is an invention more grounded in reality. Fantasy deals in the mythic and supernatural. And a lot of that has to do with the way Tutuola uses language. Similarly, my reading of the novel explores how it is more suitably classified as a pioneering work of African science fiction than of fantasy. To this day, itвЂ™s celebrated as a key example of African fantasy.Д«ut more recent analysis suggests that the Western view of Tutuola as a fantasy writer is slightly patronising, because it overlooks how seriously his work engages with African reality on its own terms. That it was written by Amos Tutuola, an unknown Nigerian clerk who took to writing to alleviate boredom, meant the book caused a stir. In 1952 The Palm-wine Drinkard became the first West African novel written in English to be published internationally.

The palm wine drinkard