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Life Turns Man Up and Down: High Life, Useful Advice, and Mad English
A unique anthology that brings together examples of once wildly popular but long out-of-print African market literature never intended as irresistibly charming, brief literary anomalies in all genres, written for entertainment, instruction, and moral guidance.
An indigenous Nigerian publishing phenomenon that was all the rage from World War II until the late 1960s, Onitsha Market literature consisted of pamphlets that contained stories, novels, plays,
discourses on the dangers of loose living, and advice on matters ranging from selecting a wife to managing your money. They carried titles such as Lack of Money Is Not Lack of Sense , Drunkards Believe Bar As Heaven , No Condition Is Permanent , and How to Write Love Letters, Toasts, and Business Letters .
Originally sold at Onitsha Market (the largest open-air market in Africa), the pamphlets have become priceless collectors’ items. This anthology—facsimile reproductions of the original texts, illustrations, and cover art—now makes them available to a wider audience.
An indigenous Nigerian publishing phenomenon that was all the rage from World War II until the late 1960s, Onitsha Market literature consisted of pamphlets that contained stories, novels, plays,
discourses on the dangers of loose living, and advice on matters ranging from selecting a wife to managing your money. They carried titles such as Lack of Money Is Not Lack of Sense , Drunkards Believe Bar As Heaven , No Condition Is Permanent , and How to Write Love Letters, Toasts, and Business Letters .
Originally sold at Onitsha Market (the largest open-air market in Africa), the pamphlets have become priceless collectors’ items. This anthology—facsimile reproductions of the original texts, illustrations, and cover art—now makes them available to a wider audience.
- GenresNonfiction
356 pages, Hardcover
First published September 4, 2001
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57 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 7, 2008
Life Turns Man Up and Down. I wrote the book
August 11, 2021
Beware your dreams, they mean nothing
Beware of the song you you sing, it may be mistranslated
Many wives today are doing very bad things. I am annoyed with those type of wives and declare wordy war against them. Below are my 24 strong charges agaiust them.
1. Some do not wake up in the morning to cook what their husband shall eat before going to market or work.
2. Some wives do not cook afternoon food in time.
4. Some wives do not clean their houses instead they follow children to soil every place.
6. Some wives cook bad things and present to their husbands.
8. Some wives do not know how to please their husbands, instead they do annoying things.
9. Some wives would never one day by "mistake" wash the clothes of their husbands.
10 Some wives tell lies to their husbands, When they wish to visit their lovers, they tell their husbands that they are going to meetings.
11 Some wives receive poisons and give to their husband. This is an unforgivable sin.
12 Some wives fight their husbands. This is a very big disrespect and lack of fear. Wives who fight their husbands are irresponsible and do not come from good families, where respect, honour, and fear are in existance.
13 Some wives are very wicked, dangerious and take their husbands to court.
14 Some wives steal the money of their husbands and send to their people.
15 Some wives are very lazy can't just struggle to get a penny of their own. They depend entirely on their husbands.
17 Some wives have long throat and appetite for every things.
18 Some wives do not look well after their husbands during their sickness. They pray that their husbands die so that they may become Governors of the house and have all the properties of their husbands.
20 Some wives are disobedient. They can't just obey any order. What their husbands tell them not to do, they do it, and what their husbands tell them to do they can never do it. They do whatever they like and please themselves.
22. Some wives love the money of their husbands and hate their husbands.
23. Some wives are too dirty. They don't wash their clothes, their bodies and even extends their dirtiness to the food they chop.
24. Some wives are attempting to control their hus- bands, and they want to be too free and go where ever they like, and return to the house at any hour that they like.
The above are the 24 strong charges which I have levelled against some wives. I know that there are many good wives. I even know some of them, but the bad ones are by far greater in number than the good ones. It is the duty of sensible women to call meetings of women where the sensible women lectures to less-sensible women on husbandary, and would deliver other domestic affairs.
Read ‘why harlots hate married men and love bachelors’
Beware of the song you you sing, it may be mistranslated
Many wives today are doing very bad things. I am annoyed with those type of wives and declare wordy war against them. Below are my 24 strong charges agaiust them.
1. Some do not wake up in the morning to cook what their husband shall eat before going to market or work.
2. Some wives do not cook afternoon food in time.
4. Some wives do not clean their houses instead they follow children to soil every place.
6. Some wives cook bad things and present to their husbands.
8. Some wives do not know how to please their husbands, instead they do annoying things.
9. Some wives would never one day by "mistake" wash the clothes of their husbands.
10 Some wives tell lies to their husbands, When they wish to visit their lovers, they tell their husbands that they are going to meetings.
11 Some wives receive poisons and give to their husband. This is an unforgivable sin.
12 Some wives fight their husbands. This is a very big disrespect and lack of fear. Wives who fight their husbands are irresponsible and do not come from good families, where respect, honour, and fear are in existance.
13 Some wives are very wicked, dangerious and take their husbands to court.
14 Some wives steal the money of their husbands and send to their people.
15 Some wives are very lazy can't just struggle to get a penny of their own. They depend entirely on their husbands.
17 Some wives have long throat and appetite for every things.
18 Some wives do not look well after their husbands during their sickness. They pray that their husbands die so that they may become Governors of the house and have all the properties of their husbands.
20 Some wives are disobedient. They can't just obey any order. What their husbands tell them not to do, they do it, and what their husbands tell them to do they can never do it. They do whatever they like and please themselves.
22. Some wives love the money of their husbands and hate their husbands.
23. Some wives are too dirty. They don't wash their clothes, their bodies and even extends their dirtiness to the food they chop.
24. Some wives are attempting to control their hus- bands, and they want to be too free and go where ever they like, and return to the house at any hour that they like.
The above are the 24 strong charges which I have levelled against some wives. I know that there are many good wives. I even know some of them, but the bad ones are by far greater in number than the good ones. It is the duty of sensible women to call meetings of women where the sensible women lectures to less-sensible women on husbandary, and would deliver other domestic affairs.
Read ‘why harlots hate married men and love bachelors’
November 16, 2023
A collection of "market literature" that represents the first English-language literature written and published in Nigeria for and by Nigerians. It is charming in the way that well-curated collections of ephemera can be, and illuminating in the way it shows how a foreign language was adopted and beaten into a new shape by the Nigerian authors.
I especially liked the surreal William S. Burroughs dream-like gangster noir short story "Adventures of the Four Stars" by J.A. Okeke Anyiche.
The following quote, from Frank E. Odili's "What is Life?" gives a feel for the "Mad English" to be found in this collection, and how it conveys a sort of impressionistic profundity out from what looks to readers of more standard English to be a logorrheaic misama:
I especially liked the surreal William S. Burroughs dream-like gangster noir short story "Adventures of the Four Stars" by J.A. Okeke Anyiche.
The following quote, from Frank E. Odili's "What is Life?" gives a feel for the "Mad English" to be found in this collection, and how it conveys a sort of impressionistic profundity out from what looks to readers of more standard English to be a logorrheaic misama:
Are you good in life; known the purpose of your being so, or being brought up in the life at all? Do you then maintain to the ability of sensational goodness? Or are you yet straining to wild hopes, therefore living to depression of perfect activities? Are your doings of fair worthy praise or merely surviving to the mournful portion of your characters? Which of these doings are you duly happy; an acquaintance of true living or the snobbish concurrence of tending the rightfulness? Which really if not the self-true-motive or goodness to which your whole binding is due? Are you with the mind of griping the worldly abundance, thereby contravening a humanitarian loss unto yourself? But why think much on the world and its containings than the good concerns you are bound over to it? Does all that whole make the end of human desires? Then why bother so highly upon them and just to that, intercede curses upon your periods of contriving happiness?
July 26, 2008
I can't say that I've read through the entire collection of Onitsha market literature yet - that will happen slowly, one at a time most likely. But, I think the book should really be taken in it's parts, starting first with the author's awesome introduction, a 40 page essay surveying history of slave-trade, colonization, and independence of Nigeria, along with market literature and development of unique pidgin English in this part of the world. I learned a ton and I think that this intro stands on it's own, though once you've read it you'll certainly want to dive into the market lit itself.
October 16, 2010
Can you get the actual pamphlets of midcentury Nigerian Market Literature? Not so much anymore, but you can get this book. I keep several copies on hand to give it to people, I love it so much.
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February 21, 2010Life Turns Man Up and Down : High Life, Useful Advice, and Mad English by Kurt Thometz (2001)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews