Thursday, May 31, 2007

Now it remained me alone in the bush



You think you've got it rough? Try getting separated from your family during a guerilla insurgency and spending decades living in the Bush of Ghosts. Or, imagine losing the only palm-wine tapster who can keep up with your appetite for drink. After which you pursue the dead tapster into--you guessed it--the Bush of Ghosts.

Amos Tutuola writes an English liberated from its crusty grammatical and stylistic moorings, and this pidgin cleverly recreates a rhythmic oral storytelling style. The tales are absolutely ridiculous and feature one outlandish creature after another, constant ju-ju battles, and unendurable miseries. "The Short Ghosts and Their Flash-Eyed Mother," "On the Queer Way to Homeward," and "Invisible Magnetic Missive Sent to Me from Home" are only a few of the treats contained herein.

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