#UPisLit One-Minute Book Review: Amos Tutuola – The Palm-Wine Drinkard

Hi! I’m Jordan from the Tuks Library, and welcome 
to the first installment in our brand new series  
of #UPisLit one-minute book reviews. Today I’ll 
be talking about The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos  
Tutuola, an absolutely fantastic fantasy- 
adventure novel from Nigeria. It’s one of  
my all-time favorites; the style is completely 
unique and it’s just a lot of fun! So basically  
the premise of the novel: the main character 
really likes a drink… He really likes a drink…  
So he hires someone to tap palm wine for him  
so that he can drink constantly, but then his 
palm wine tapster dies and he gets so desperate  
for another drink he decides to take all of his 
father’s juju and embark on this dangerous journey  
through the bush to the land of the dead 
to rescue the palm-wine tapster. Along  
the way he encounters all sorts of monsters and 
creatures and ghosts that are just so imaginative,  
it’s fantastic. If you’re a fan of Douglas 
Adams, Ben Okri or Terry Pratchett, or if you  
really like the Studio Ghibli films as well, then 
I can’t recommend The Palm-Wine Drinkard enough.  
You can find a copy on level 6 of the 
Merensky 2 Library, and you’ll thank me later.