The Lure of the Honeybird: The Storytellers of Ethiopia

A bestselling, award-winning author turns her hand to a work of travel memoir with this book. In 1967, at the age of 23, Elizabeth Laird set off for Addis Ababa to take up her first teaching post. Back in Britain, Laird established herself as a major author of fiction for children and young adults, but she always wanted to return to Ethiopia. Her chance came in the late 1990s, when the British Council in Addis Ababa invited her to collect folk stories from every region of the country and she encountered former guerrilla fighters, camel traders, Coptic nuns, and tribespeople en route. Laird has written a remarkable account of her journey interwoven with a treasure trove of stories featuring princes and maidens, snakes and lions, zombies and hyena-women.