The Book of Amuwapi

by Christopher Lord, Petr Nikl (Illustrator)

Fiction. Amuwapi is the name of a prehistoric god who lives alone in the Palace of the Moon and weeps ceaselessly. He is associated with tears, with writing, with the sundial, with menstruation, and with a human sacrifice cult which has left traces in the civilizations of the dawn of history. THE BOOK OF AMUWAPI is a collection of documents from various civilizations and periods associated in some way with the cult of Amuwapi, varying from ancient legal documents to Javanese folk tales. Intertwined with this reconstruction of the Amuwapi cult is the story of the catfish, who meets Amuwapi at the beginning of the book and is advised to carry out a search for love. Handsomely illustrated by Petr Nikl.

141 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2000

Reviews

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's an odd little gem. I spotted this among the markdowns for the mark of Twisted Spoon Press, the Prague-based publisher of the current edition of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, and opened it to discover a web of myths and historical materials graced by gently bizarre color illustrations like something out of theCodex Seraphinianus. Despite all the ostensible scholarship that went into researching and compiling this cross-cultural record of the "Weeping God" and human sacrifice recipient Amuwapi, it reads with a conversational ease (oral tradition), encompasses clever recreations and blurrings of its components, and ultimately holds together as a singular record of a questing catfish through time and space. Completely unexpected and worthwhile.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a work of fiction structured as a collection of scholarly documents, oral histories, fairy tales, and illustrations all centered on the god Amuwapi, whose cult originated in ancient Sumer and stretched from Celtic Europe all the way to China. Amuwapi is characterized by his constant weeping for the loneliness and suffering of life, seeming a bit of parody of the Christian emphasis on sin and martyrdom. Instead of figuratively consuming the body of Christ, the priests of Amuwapi literally commit human sacrifice and dismemberment. Meanwhile a lonely catfish looking for love connects all the stories like a series of Russian nesting dolls. What an odd little book. I was expecting something more surreal, though, maybe more in the jewel box style of Wilde or Dunsany.

EDIT: I looked this book up in WorldCat and apparently the LC call number is a BL. That's the Religion & Mythology section. Amuwapi is completely the creation of Christopher Lord. Someone at the Library of Congress was being sloppy, lmao.