The Lost Spell

By Yismake Worku (translated by Bethlehem Attfield)

Tuesday, 1 February 2022

Typesetting complete

The Lost Spell has now been typeset. Below is a sneak preview of a couple of pages, including one illustration. I have done three illustrations to accompany the text.

All that remains for us to do is:

  1. finalise the cover drawings and print them with our new local supplier.
  2. print the proofread text with Short Run Press.

We're a couple of months behind schedule, thank you for your patience. We continue slowly but surely into the printing. You may already know that Brexit has caused book printing prices to increase by 40% in a single bound. Navigating this hurdle will take a little time, but we are guaranteed to complete it, thanks in part to your support!

It has also been fun getting to know more about the author Yismake Worku, while editing the foreword by Dr. Admasu Meshesha and writing a brief biographical note. Only 22 when his debut Dertogada became a bestseller, it is heartening to see a novelist becomes a bestseller in Amharic because of experimentation; bizarre or jarring passages, unfamiliar techniques, interrupting the plot with historical digressions. It all adds up to a study of politically driven dehumanisation and how successfully we can ignore it before our fortune changes.    

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