"un poco tiempo" + time frame for "ago"

Question

I want to ask a question about the phrase "un poco tiempo".

I was listening to a Spanish exercise and transcribed the following dialogue regarding an author:

He publicado hasta el momento 5 libros, el primero en 1988 y el último hace muy poco tiempo, unos meses.

I roughly translated this to

I have published 5 books up to this points, the first in 1988 and the last a few months ago.

However, the use of the phrase hace muy poco tiempo unos meses confused me.

From what I can gather, hace is the present form of "hacer" and the time frame is given as "unos meses" but there is no verb to indicate that the activity was done in the past.

I know from previous Spanish experience at school that I could say

Hace un año que estudié español. Estudié español hace un año.

to convey the sense of "time ago" but couldn't work it out in my example.

What is the function of "hace muy poco tiempo unos meses" in this sentence and what is the logic behind such a sentence?

Answer 1

Here's what I think was meant:

He publicado hasta el momento 5 libros, el primero en 1988 y el último hace muy poco tiempo, es decir, hace apenas unos meses. | I have published five books so far, the first in 1988 and the last one quite recently, just a few months ago.

I think you got all the puzzle pieces correct, but you weren't quite sure what to do with the afterthought "[comma] unos meses."