For many readers in Britain this was our first glimpse of the powerful imaginative freedom that was stirring in African writing. It had a huge influence on me: the matter-of-fact presentation of the strangest things imaginable showed me a kind of storytelling I found immensely congenial, and made it possible to write in a voice I finally recognised as my own.
~ Philip Pullman
The book follows an alcoholic man as he sets off on a journey through the land of the dead in search of his palm-wine tapster. Filled with terrifying supernatural beings and fearsome creatures, the novel draws from traditional Yoruba folktales and represent a seminal work of African literature.