My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Amos Tutuola · 1920–1997 · Nigeria

Why it matters

A seven-year-old boy flees into the bush and spends twenty-four years among ghosts, monsters, and shape-shifting spirits before finding his way home. Tutuola's second novel, wilder even than The Palm-Wine Drinkard, and a direct influence on the Beat generation.

At a glance

Episodic, dreamlike encounters follow folk-tale logic rather than conventional cause and effect.