My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Amos Tutuola’s second novel, was first published in 1954. It tells the tale of a small boy who wanders into the heart of a fantastical African forest, the dwelling place of innumerable wild, grotesque and terrifying beings. He is captured by ghosts, buried alive and wrapped up in spider webs, but after several years he marries and accepts his new existence. With the appearance of the television-handed ghostess, however, comes a possible route of escape.

Amos Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1920. The son of a cocoa farmer, he attended several schools before training as a blacksmith. He later worked as a civil servant. His first novel, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, was published in 1952 and brought him international recognition. From 1956 until retirement, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company while continuing to write. His last book, The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories, was published in 1990. He died in Ibadan in 1997.

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Praise:

"Tutuola … has the immediate intuition of a creative artist working by spell and incantation." - V. S. Pritchett, New Statesman

"A fantastic and evocative trip." - The Saturday Review

"A striking work of syncretism, recontextualizing previously unrecorded west African mythology by imbuing it with symbols of what was at the time a new global modernity." - Elijah Wolfson, TIME

"Who wouldn't want to get enveloped in a fog of magical delight? Tutuola's second novel is what Alice in Wonderland could have been if Lewis Carroll had imagined a world haunted by outrageous beasts and ghouls." - Ainehi Edoro, The Guardian