Most contemporary African writers are meeting a vital need of their people by contributing mythopoeic works: they reach back into the African's precolonial past for identity, life force, and a sense of where the African came from. They then go on to address the problem of how he will master his current situation, given this identity. An exception is Amos Tutuola, once regarded as a writer of considerable promise. Tutuola explores African origins, but does not go beyond. His tales of the African bush are filled with terror and magical thinking; there is no emergence and successful adaptation. Accordingly, Tutuola's tales are regressive and of no use to the modern African who wishes to move ahead toward true independence.