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Author Falola, Toyin

Title A mouth sweeter than salt : an African memoir / by Toyin Falola
Published Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, ©2004

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Description 1 online resource
Series Book collections on Project MUSE
Contents Time and Season -- Blood and Mouth -- Snake and Bible -- Mamas and Money -- Big Daddy in the Jungle -- Becoming Yoruba -- Herbs and Charms -- Village Politics -- Seasonal Pleasures -- The Pastor's Ordeal
Summary "Toyin Falola has given us what is truly rare in modern African writing: a seriously funny, racy, irreverent package of memories, and full of the most wonderful pieces of poetry and ordinary information. It is a matter of some interest, that the only other volume A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt reminds one of is Ake, by Wole Soyinka. What is it about these Yorubas?"--Ama Ata Aidoo "A splendid coming-of-age story so full of vivid color and emotion, the words seem to dance off the page. But this is not only Falola's memoir; it is an account of a new nation coming into being and the tensions and negotiations that invariably occur between city and country, tradition and modernity, men and women, rich and poor. A truly beautiful book."--Robin D.G. Kelley "More than a personal memoir, this book is a rich minihistory of contemporary Nigeria recorded in delicious detail by a perceptive eyewitness who grew up at the crossroads of many cultures."--Bernth Lindfors "The reader is irresistibly drawn into Falola's world. The prose is lucid. There is humor. This work is sweet. Period."--Ngugi wa Thiongo'o A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt gathers the stories and reflections of the early years of Toyin Falola, the grand historian of Africa and one of the greatest sons of Ibadan, the notable Yoruba city-state in Nigeria. Redefining the autobiographical genre altogether, Falola miraculously weaves together personal, historical, and communal stories, along with political and cultural developments in the period immediately preceding and following Nigeria's independence, to give us a unique and enduring picture of the Yoruba in the mid-twentieth century. This is truly a literary memoir, told in language rich with proverbs, poetry, song, and humor. Falola's memoir is far more than the story of one man's childhood experiences; rather, he presents us with the riches of an entire culture and community-its history, traditions, pleasures, mysteries, household arrangements, forms of power, struggles, and transformations
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
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digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Falola, Toyin -- Childhood and youth
SUBJECT Falola, Toyin fast
Subject Nigerian Americans -- Biography
College teachers -- Texas -- Austin -- Biography
HISTORY.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Historical.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General.
Childhood and youth of a person
College teachers
Nigerian Americans
Social conditions
SUBJECT Nigeria -- Biography
Nigeria -- History -- 1960- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85091868
Nigeria -- Social conditions -- 1960- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85091888
Subject Nigeria
Texas -- Austin
Genre/Form collective biographies.
autobiographies (literary works)
Autobiographies
History
Biographies
Biographies.
Autobiographies.
Biographies.
Autobiographies.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020706840
ISBN 9780472025558
0472025554
1282593978
9781282593978
9786612593970
6612593970