Editorial Works

The Curse of Lono

Hunter S. Thompson’s
The Curse of Lono

Categories: #Editorial Works #Project Management #Typesetting

Client/Publisher: TASCHEN

Date: October 2013 – March 2014

A wild ride to dark Americana

The Curse of Lono is to Hawaii what Fear and Loathing was to Las Vegas: a journalist’s news event “coverage” that ends up an unclassifiable twist of fiction and reportage, myth and crazed surrealism. Featuring all of the zany, hallucinogenic wordplay and feral artwork for which the Hunter S. Thompson/Ralph Steadman duo became known and loved, the book was at once their exemplary and most eccentric output.

The original edition of The Curse of Lono, published 1983, had long been out of print when TASCHEN brought out a signed, limited re-edition almost a decade ago. The book sold out before it even hit the stores. This fresh, smaller format, makes the gonzo masterpiece accessible to everyone.

About the author:

Legendary author Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) developed a style of writing about American life and politics that was so acerbic and over-the-top, it earned its own nickname: “gonzo journalism.” His magazine articles and books—of which he penned nearly a dozen, including Hell’s Angels, The Rum Diary, Songs of the Doomed, The Great Shark Hunt, and the monumental Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—influenced a generation of writers and established his voice as an essential part of America’s socio-political fabric. Portrayed on the silver screen by Bill Murray (Where the Buffalo Roam, 1980) and Johnny Depp (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1998), Thompson was a wild character whose persona was inseparable from his often semi-autobiographical writing. True to his image, he once said, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

About the illustrator:
Ralph Steadman is best known for his collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson. He is also a printmaker (his prints include a series of etchings on writers from William Shakespeare to William Burroughs). His own books include the lives of Sigmund Freud and Leonardo da Vinci and The Big I Am, the story of God.