A música livre: os matizes do ente-instrumento na obra de Amos Tutuola

Luiza Nascimento Almeida

doi:10.35699/2317-2096.2026.61545

Authors

Luiza Nascimento Almeida Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) | Rio de Janeiro | RJ | BR Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-2096.2026.61545

Keywords:

Amos Tutuola, African music, African philosophy

Abstract

Amos Tutuola (1920-1997) was a pioneering Nigerian writer who revolutionized African literature by writing in English with narrative structure rooted in Yoruba oral tradition. This article investigates the concept of “entity-instrument” in his works The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), demonstrating how musical instruments emerge as subjects endowed with agency and vital force. The analysis reveals that musical elements become living entities with transformative power, echoing African epistemologies. The work establishes connections between African folk tales and traditional music, proposing “complementarity” as an alternative to the Western subject-object dichotomy, configuring a communal sonic aesthetic continuum.

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