Getty Ambau’s second volume of Desta is out. It is as enchanting and as voluminous as the first one. In it, this award-wining author has managed to establish himself as an Ethiopian novelist writing in English. He has once again succeeded in portraying Ethiopia’s past in a positive light. In the second volume, Desta confronts the world at large forsaking his secure, native village in search of a better education. He leads an adventurous life of adulthood. His life invokes nostalgia in those who had trodden on the same path growing up in Ethiopia during the era of monarchy.
Getty Ambau’s mastery of the English language is astounding, considering that English is not his native tongue. It is worth reading. For details, please read the following
press-release.
Fikre Tolossa, Ph.D., Poet-playwright
Desta
And The Winds of Washaa Umera
Volume
In the second act of this unfolding epic, the shepherd boy Desta is catapulted from his remote and isolated valley into a wider world. He pursues his dream of a modern education and vows to fulfill the destiny of his family by reuniting the twin Coins of Magic and Fortune.
To accomplish this parallel quest, Desta must hold firm to his own moral compass, following a path laden with mysterious notes, spectral voices, the Cloud Man’s counsel, and the seductive urgings of the ethereal Eleni. Driven ever farther from his origins by his dreams, Desta must confront the meaning of family and physical privation. He must use his own powerful gifts if he is to see his deepest aspirations take flight.
Conjuring the sun-splashed land and a rich cultural pageantry that readers have come to love, Desta and The Winds of Washaa Umera is one boy’s endearing journey of discovery, and a wise parable on the power of faith and aspiration.
“I read DESTA in manuscript form a year ago, and this amazing, lovely book is still in my mind. Getty is a fabulous storyteller, and Desta and his family are wonderful, vivid, flawed, and ultimately uplifting characters. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Like Harry Potter or The Book Thief, it is a book for both adults and younger readers. It is a true literary and cultural treasure.” Lori Schryer, Author
“The pages ignite with inventive storytelling, primal protean settings, and the unquenchable ardor of an ill-clad shepherd boy with a heroic destiny—to reunite the outcast symbols of humanity’s noblest impulses, and to heal a troubled world . . . .This is a tale of breathless, and breathtaking scope, heart, and ambition!” Vincent Cusenza, writer
About the Author: Getty Ambau is a graduate of Yale University where he studied Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and Economics. Although over the years he had worked as a research chemist and run his own businesses, writing has always been his inner calling. He has written books and articles on health and nutrition which have sold internationally. This new volume of DESTA is his second in a series whose numbers have yet to be determined.
Who exactly is DESTA–watch video!
http://www.youtube.com/user/Destathebook
DESTA – Deutsche Welle (a German radio station) Interviews with Azeb Tadesse
The Four Pillars of Health – a TV interview