My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Amos Tutuola’s second novel recounting the fate of mortals who stray into the world of ghosts, now available in a standalone volume with an introduction by Kaveh Akbar

First published in 1954, now acclaimed as a modern classic, and named one of TIME’s “100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time,” My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is the second novel by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola. A small boy finds himself lost in the heart of an impenetrable African forest, populated with fantastical beings and ghosts. As every hunter and traveler knows, it is almost impossible to leave the bush—yet the appearance of the television-handed ghostess may offer him a rare opportunity for escape. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a masterpiece of the surreal that blends Tutuola’s native Yoruba culture with the encroaching influences of British and Christian colonialism in West Africa, a picaresque and darkly funny journey that is unique in literature.