The Maltese book

Consider an island of 400,000 inhabitants. Subtract from that amount those who cannot read for various reasons.

Now take away those who will not read and, given the abysmal status awarded us by Eurostat as last among our European peers in book reading, it is very likely that there is a tidy number there.

What is left? And how many of those that are left actually prefer to read books published outside our shores rather than those published here?

This does not make for optimism about the home-grown publishing product, does it?

And, yet, the Maltese book flourishes.

It is in the main brilliantly produced, extremely well written, where needed very well illustrated; all told a product we should most definitely be proud of.

Our publishers struggle - in the face of reader apathy; a natural environment that promotes physical activity such as swimming rather than any sort of intellectual activity; minimal distances that preclude any deep immersion into the worlds created by books - and manage to give us a variety of locally-published books that could easily be the envy of much larger, much more book-oriented countries.

We have a number of publishers on the island that produce an ever larger number of books each year.

This year's edition of the National Book Prize has attracted a record number of 151 books, all published last year.

Add to those a number of books not submitted for the prize and you have an output that is almost disproportionate to the size of the Maltese reading public.

But Malta deserves to have the variety it does have in its native books.

It deserves to have publishers that can afford to take risks because playing it safe will mean we have an abundance of the limited range of books that sell - a certain type of novel, a particular sort of children's book and nothing else.

But to be able to take the risks necessary for there to be a product that goes across the cultural board, they need to be convinced that the public will support them in their ventures.

That the administration of the country will, too.

That there are incentives that will help them continue to enrich our culture with their work.

That the Maltese and those who govern them acknowledge the fact that culture will not grow on its own - that a people are not encultured in a vacuum but that there is a constant, practical backing of cultural projects that enrich the mind and uplift the spirit.

That there is a fair distribution of the funds allocated to the different cultural products available rather than the popular and, possibly, not so cultural (in any sense of the word) hogging the lion's share.

That funds for culture actually increase.

That we, as a country, put our money where our mouth is and put culture on the national map, possibly much more than it is already.

I think Maltese books, both those written in Maltese and those that are in other languages but still published here, can benefit massively from such a move.

The National Book Council is trying to be proactive in this sense. That is why it will hold the Maltese Book Fair between today and Saturday at the Robert Samut Hall in Floriana.

Helped by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports, the council will in this way provide access to thousands of Maltese publications to all those who choose to go the way of culture (and a unique sort of entertainment) and go see exactly what variety and wealth the Maltese publishing industry has to offer.

The publishers who opted to participate in the fair range from large to very small but each has contributed energy, money, time, and, above all else, a genuine love for books and a practical acknowledgement of the need for Malta to have its own.

A visit to the Robert Samut Hall when the fair is on will make your day.

And it will also help the Maltese book live another day - to grow better, bigger and continue to reflect Maltese society in a way that no other book published outside these shores can.

Dr Mallia is chairman of the National Book Council.

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