Amos Tutuola was born in 1920 in Abeokuta, Nigeria. He first entered his home village school at the age of twelve and in 1934 he entered the Lagos High School, under the sponsorship of a family friend. Trouble with the people he lived with sent Tutuola back to school in Abeokuta in 1936 and the death of his father in 1939 forced Tutuola to end his formal education. He returned to Lagos to learn blacksmithing and in 1942 he joined the R.A.F. as a blacksmith.
Despite a somewhat abbreviated formal education, Tutuola originally wrote all of his novels in English. The success of his stories prompted him to translate a number of his works into his native language, Yoruba. While working as a messenger for the Department of Labor, Tutuola wrote the first draft of The Palm-Wine Drinkard, a romance built out of elements of Yoruba folklore. Published by Faber and Faber in London in 1952, The Palm-Wine Drinkard is considered the first of all anglo-phone Nigerian novels. Due to the critical and popular success of this novel, Tutuola became the first Nigerian novelist to win international acclaim. The Palm-Wine Drinkard was followed by My Life in the Bush Ghosts (1954); Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle (1955); The Brave African Huntress (1958); Feather Woman of the Jungle (1962); Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty (1967); The Witch Herbalist of the Remote Town (1981); The Wild Hunter in the Bush of Ghosts (written in the late 1940s, but not published until 1982); Pauper, Brawler, Slanderer (1987); and The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories (1990).
The initial purchase of Tutuola's papers was arranged by University of Houston professor Robert Wren, while additional accessions were facilitated by Tutuola's friend and professor of African and English literature at the University of Texas at Austin, Bernth Lindfors. A number of Tutuola-related materials were the gift of Lindfors, and other pertinent materials are located in the Bernth Lindfors Papers, including a photostat of his typed manuscript Critical Perspectives on Amos Tutuola (1975).
Amos Tutuola died in Nigeria in 1997.
From the guide to the Amos Tutuola Collection TXRC 93-A101., 1940-1997, (The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center)
