University lecturer named judge in Commonwealth Writers' Prize

A senior lecturer at the university's Department of English has just been appointed to the Eurasian jury panel for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Stella Borg Barthet will sit on a three-member jury panel.

This is the second time the Commonwealth Foundation has picked appointees from the university's Department of English. Earlier this year, Daniel Massa chaired the pan-Commonwealth panel, the prize winners for this year being announced during the conference dinner of the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies at the Radisson SAS Baypoint Hotel last March.

The Commonwealth Foundation set up the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1987 to encourage and reward writers from the Commonwealth and to ensure that works of merit reach a wider audience outside the country of origin.

For the purpose of this very prestigious prize, the Commonwealth is divided into four regions: Europe and Asia; South East Asia and the South Pacific; Africa; the Caribbean and Canada.

Dr Borg Barthet and the other jurors on the four different panels will read and judge the novels entered in two categories, Best Book and Best First Book. Of the eight regional winning entries, the final judging panel will pick the best in the two categories. The overall winners of the Best Book and the Best First Book award receive £10,000 and £3,000 respectively.

Dr Borg Barthet has been teaching Commonwealth and post-colonial literature in the Department of English since 1996. She has published papers, mostly on African and Australian literature, both in Malta as well as in Australia, Malaysia, Spain and Italy.