They fail to touch other virtues in a work because they do not have the imagination to perceive these mysteries.

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His grandfather the Odafin of Egbaland, Chief Odegbami (c.

Odegbami clan, was a chieftain of the Egba people and a traditional worshipper of the Yoruba religion.

At age 12, he attended the Anglican Central School in Abeokuta.

His brief education was limited to six years (from 1934 to 1939).

After his grandfathers death in 1936, most members of the chiefs family decided to adopt the European style of naming and take his name, Odegbami, as their last name.

However, several other family members, including Amos, decided to take their fathers name, Tutuola, instead.

When his father died in 1939, Tutuola left school to train as a blacksmith, the trade he practised from 1942 to 1945 for the Royal Air Force in Nigeria during WWII.

He subsequently tried a number of other vocations, including selling bread and acting as messenger for the Nigerian Department of Labour.

In 1946, Tutuola completed his first full-length book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, within a few days.

In 1947, he married Victoria Alake, with whom he had four sons and four daughters; he would also marry 3 other wives.

In 1956, after he had written his first three books and become internationally famous, he joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in Ibadan, Western Nigeria as a storekeeper.

Tutuola also became one of the founders of the Mbari Club, the writers and publishers organization.

In 1979, he held a visiting research fellowship at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University ) at Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and in 1983 he was an associate of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

In retirement he divided his time between residences Ibadan and Ago-Odo.

Some translators, notably Raymond Queneau (French) and Ernestyna Skurjat (Polish), deliberately adjusted the grammar and syntax of the translations, to reflect the occasionally atypical language of Tutuolas original prose.

Poet Dylan Thomas brought it to wide attention, calling it brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching.

Although the book was praised in England and the United States, it faced severe criticism in Tutuolas native Nigeria.

Part of this criticism was due to his use of broken English and primitive style, which supposedly promoted the Western stereotype of African backwardness.

Ezekiel Mphahlele has often said and written that African writers are doing violence to English.

Violence Has Joyce not done more violence to the English Language Mark Twain s Huckleberry Finn is written in seven dialects, he tells us.

We accept it, forget that it has no grammar, and go ahead to learn his grammar and what he has to tell us.

Let Tutuola write no grammar and the hyenas and jackals whine and growl.

They are mum. Why Education drives out of the mind superstition, daydreaming, building of castles in the air, cultivation of yarns, and replaces them with a rational practical mind, almost devoid of imagination.

Some of these minds having failed to write imaginative stories, turn to that aristocratic type of criticism which magnifies trivialities beyond their real size.

The Palm Wine Drinkard Novel Pdf