It was a great pleasure to meet Jean-Noël Schifano novelist, photographer and publisher, recently in Rabat, Morocco, at a literary conference organised by the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco.
Schifano’s outfit, Gallimard, published the French edition of Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard in 1953.
The Palm Wine Drinkard, a tale based on Yoruba folktales written in a modified (Pidgin) English, was first published in London by Faber and Faber in 1952.
The book was later translated into French by Raymond Queneau with the title ‘L’Ivrogne dans la brousee’ and published by Gallimard, a France based publishing outfit, in 1953.
The book was the first African novel published in English outside of Africa.
