Life Turns Man Up and Down; Useful Advice, and Mad English - African Market Literature
Selected by Kurt Thometz, Pantheon Books, New York, 2001.

In this attractive, hard bound book the original text and illustrations from the pamphlets are printed on tinted cloth paper, retaining a low-tech look akin to some sort of chicken wire screen printing process. This beautifully flawed sense of mass production only enhances the skewered, “happy accident” text (think Engrish), at once pointed, and at times intriguingly vague.

Includes excerpts from pamphlets entitled: ‘Mabel the Sweet Honey That Poured Away’, ‘Drunkards Believe Bar as Heaven’, and ‘How to Avoid Corner Corner Love and Win Good Love from Girls’.

"My dear readers. Do not trust all you see in the world. Many friends are dangerous enemies. I have told you in time so that you may not regret at last. A word is enough for the wise... Do not lend money to your friends without a strong agreement received and do not tell all your secrets or plans to your friends... When you look left and right you understand better. Be careful the world is hard and full of lies and changes... Since brother does not trust brother, father does not trust his son, sister does not trust her sister, mother does not trust her daughter and master does not trust his servant. I cannot tell you who to trust... Read on and become wise, good advice is the best medicine of life."

- from ‘No Money, Much Expenses, Enemies, and Bad Friends Kill a Man (The Way to Avoid Poverty) by R. Okonkwo. Onshita: J.C. Brothers Bookshop, New Era Printers, 1965.

Useful chapters inform on all aspects of prison life, from smuggling and hiding places to "situational homosexuality". Shank photos galore. "Squealers" take note, after you are "turned out" your throat will be cut with an Oral-B.