Inizjamed Blue White@0.5x
Festival Mediterranju tal-Letteratura ta Malta / Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival
Aqra / Read 2019

Aqra / Read 2019

Togħma żgħira tal-kitbiet tal-awturi mistiedna għall-Festival Mediterranju tal-Letteratura ta’ Malta 2019.
A little taste from the works of the authors taking part in the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival 2019.

Yolanda Pantin

Yolanda Pantin. Photo by Pascual Borzelli.

I only understand
what I project onto you
what the foreign language
unchains
out of its strange music

Ritratt / Photo: Pascual Borzelli


Yolanda Castaño

Yolanda Castaño. Photo by Dmitri Kotjuh.

My beauty that intimidates,
that annoys without speaking,
that weakens.
My beauty that prognosticates,
that eclipses me,
that betrays me.

Ritratt / Photo: Dmitri Kotjuh.


Sampurna Chattarji

Sampurna Chattarji. Photo by Richard Hooton.

I will count and recount the ways
in which a poem turns slowly
into the story I wasn’t writing,
was always writing,
into the sharp clear sound of morning,
ancestral and strong.

Ritratt / Photo: Richard Hooton.


Rena Balzan

Rena Balzan. Photo by Mario Mintoff.

tgħid postna ma kienx hemm
lil hinn mil-limiti
ta’ kull
żmien
u forsi ħadd mill-antenati
ma ried jixhed …
li qatt rana flimkien
lili u lilek?

Ritratt / Photo: Mario Mintoff


Rasha Abbas

Rasha Abbas

Your games are upsetting; they always seem like they’re going to end in tears. Like this one you’re playing right now, for example — I’ve just woken up to find myself blindfolded, with my hands tied to the chair I’m sitting on.


Loranne Vella

Loranne Vella. Photo by Kenneth Scicluna.

Xi rrid nagħmel biex nitlaq?
Hawn min iqum u jitlaq. Iqum filgħodu, jilbes, jiftaħ il-bieb u joħroġ. U ma jerġax jiġi lura. Hekk. Bla pjan. Bla tħejjija. Jew forsi ħajtu kollha sa dak il-punt kienet fil-fatt tħejjija biżżejjed biex jum fost l-oħrajn taqbiżlu u jaqbad u jitlaq. Hekk. Ħabta u sabta.

Ritratt / Photo: Kenneth Scicluna


Habib Tengour

Habib Tengour

With the summer all our friends have left.
Such memories …
At the instant of farewell your life turns transparent and so
it can look
at itself without grief.


Elizabeth Grech

Elizabeth Grech. Photo by Virginia Monteforte.

Ħudni miegħek
ngħaddu l-linji mkemmxa,
insewwu t-tiċrit
tal-Mediterran.
Jekk hemm post għalija,
ħallini ninħall
bejn il-fili rotob
ta’ laħmek.

Ritratt / Photo: Virginia Monteforte


Davide Rondoni

Davide Rondoni

In her eyes the smile of having
met her man before the rabbit hutch
a gentle, acrid morning
when his greeting was but
a couple coarse and heavenly lines.


Astrid Alben

Astrid Alben photo by Philip Hancock

I’m a sudden coolness in the air I’m coming down
rain — the kind the eye can see like Poet playing air guitar
love home envy kitchen table a complex of occasions
like my mother playing solitaire. She listens to the radio.

Ritratt / Photo: Philip Hancock


Antoine Cassar

Antoine Cassar. Photo by Sunshine Coast Writers Festival

Erbgħin għodwa mil-lum sa tmiem is-sena,
ħa nindem minn kull għelt, niskonġra l-biża’,
nerġa’ nifrex il-mappa, inġibha f’postha,
f’tarf il-ħabel nerġa’ niddritta l-boxxla
’mbagħad jew inkompli għal triqti, jew ninfena.

Ritratt / Photo: Sunshine Coast Writers Festival


Eric Ngalle Charles

Eric Ngalle Charles Paul Musso at Hay Festival crop

The last ritual.
That day, I prayed in a tongue
I did not understand,
In a language, I did not speak.
I laugh.
Rain bouncing on my back,
My wrinkles hiding the passage of time,
Living as a stranger amongst my own.

Ritratt / Photo: Paul Musso at Hay Festival