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Amos Tutuola (; 20 June 1920 – 8 June 1997) was a Nigerian writer who wrote books based in part on Yoruba people folklore.
Amos was the youngest son of his father; his mother was his father's third wife. His grandfather the Odafin of Egbaland, Chief Odegbami (c. 1842–1936), patriarch of the Odegbami clan, was a Nigerian chiefs of the Egba people and a traditional worshipper of the Yoruba religion. His title, "Odafin" (literally "the establisher of laws" or "lawgiver" in Yoruba language), signified that he had an administrative position within the traditional administration of Egbaland, and that he was one of the Iwarefa of the Ogboni.
When Amos was seven years old, in 1927, he became a servant to F. O. Monu, an Igbo people man, who sent him to the Salvation Army primary school in lieu of wages. At age 12, he attended the Anglican Central School in Abeokuta. His brief education was limited to six years (from 1934 to 1939). After his grandfather's death in 1936, most members of the chief's family decided to adopt the European style of naming and take his name, Odegbami, as their last name. However, several other family members, including Amos, decided to take their father's name, Tutuola, instead. When his father died in 1939, Tutuola left school to train as a blacksmith, the trade he practised from 1942 to 1945 for the Royal Air Force in Nigeria during WWII. He subsequently tried a number of other vocations, including selling bread and acting as messenger for the Nigerian Department of Labour. In 1947, he married Victoria Alake, with whom he had four sons and four daughters; he would also marry 3 other wives. He is the uncle of the Nigerian footballers Segun Odegbami and Wole Odegbami.
Tutuola died at the age of 76 on 8 June 1997 from hypertension and diabetes.
Many of his papers, letters, and holographic manuscripts have been collected at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin.
Tutuola's works have been translated into 11 languages, including French, German, Russian, and Polish. Some translators, notably Raymond Queneau (French) and Ernestyna Skurjat (Polish), deliberately adjusted the grammar and syntax of the translations to reflect the occasionally atypical language of Tutuola's original prose.
Molara Ogundipe in her own reassessment wrote in The Journal of Commonwealth Studies:
O. R. Dathorne additionally said:
Wole Soyinka wrote in 1963:
The Palm-Wine Drinkard was followed by My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in 1954 and then several other books in which Tutuola continued to explore Yoruba traditions and folklore, although none of the subsequent works managed to match the success of The Palm Wine Drinkard. His 1958 work, The Brave African Huntress, was illustrated by Ben Enwonwu.
In 2015, the Society of Young Nigerian Writers, under the leadership of Wole Adedoyin, founded the Amos Tutuola Literary Society, aimed at promoting and reading Tutuola's works.
In 2021, Will Alexander published a long poem – 'Based on the Bush of Ghosts' – in honour of Tutuola Refractive Africa, the collection of which this was part, was subsequently listed as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
In 2021, Aderemi Adegbite, the Nigerian contemporary artist-curator and poet, inaugurated the Tutuola Institute - The Yoruba Cultural Institute, an artistic and cultural intervention legally recognized in Nigeria as a Limited by Guarantee Charity.
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