Finalist for the 2021 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. This is the very first anthology of Ethiopian poetry in English, packed with all the energy, wit and heartache of a beautiful country and language. From folk and religious poems, warrior boasts, praises of women and kings and modern plumbing; through a flowering of literary poets in the twentieth century; right up to thirty of the most exciting contemporary Amharic poets working both inside and outside the country. These poems ask what it means to be Ethiopian today, part of a young fast-growing economy, heirs to the one African state which was never colonised, but beset by deep political, ethnic and moral problems.

'In Search of Fat' is a translation of some of Bewketu Seyoums's popular poems from Amharic. The poems in this bilingual edition mark his distinctive humorous but cutting style in predominantly short form. The translations, with input from the author, aim to replicate in English the energy and vitality of his voice. Bewketu Seyoum is a popular young Ethiopian poet and writer from Mankusa in Gojjam, north-west of Addis Ababa. His father is an English teacher and his mother comes from a family of Orthodox priests. He has published three collections of Amharic poetry, two novels and two CD's of humorous stories. His short punchy poems, full of warmth and humour, address all the important issues of modern life, including poverty, freedom, religion and love. In 2008, Bewketu was awarded the prize for Young Writer of the Year by the President of Ethiopia. In June 2012, he will represent Ethiopia at the Poetry Parnassus festival in London.