Teaching Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard as Part of a Decolonial Literature Syllabus

Abstract

Abstract This essay argues that The Palm-Wine Drinkard ([1952] 2014), a tale of a quest through the African bush by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, does important decolonial work and is therefore an excellent candidate for inclusion on a literature syllabus that aims to introduce students to decolonial thinking. After introducing Tutuola's work and considering some of the issues at stake for a decolonial pedagogy, it argues that Drinkard provides an active reading experience that creates powerful opportunities in the classroom to challenge students’ assumptions about how colonialism was experienced by colonized populations, the valences of the human, and uses of the English language. In so doing, the essay highlights potential teachable moments in the text that may be useful to instructors who wish to adopt a decolonial approach in their literature courses.