Vincent Vella is an all-rounder. A writer of short stories, novels and plays, Mr Vella has had his works published in English, Maltese and Slovenian and has won prizes both locally and abroad. His latest play, The Pardon Beggars, has just been staged while another play, Ernesto Panza, was broadcast on the BBC World Service. He was regional winner for Europe in the BBC World Service Radio Playwriting Competition in 1995, 2005 and 2007. Mr Vella has also published a number of books including the novel Inside the Horse and a recent collection, Mark of Cain.
Mr Vella starts with his inspirations. "There are so many great writers who inspire me. Whenever a reference strikes me I usually go back to it and find myself asking whether it will stand the test of time. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. The Russians have inspired me greatly, especially Dostoevsky, as well as the existentialists Sartre and Camus. I would say that where short story technique is concerned, I was mostly influenced by Guy de Maupassant and Somerset Maugham. Then I discovered female writers who gave me another perspective altogether - novelists like Nadine Gordimer and Muriel Spark have provided me with an angle which added to the whole design and structure."
Mr Vella admits to being a very slow writer. "Sometimes it takes me months to get something out into the open and it can be agonising, as if being permanently pregnant. It is a way of venting. I read about how the writing process should take place and some things have happened in me, others haven't. There's always something new that crops up."
"I do not keep to a defined structure when I'm writing. A couple of years ago John Bond was visiting, and I saw how he always has everything planned out before he actually writes it down. It's almost as if he's got everything written twice over. I must say that I do plan but it doesn't actually work for me. I leave a lot of space for improvisation and sometimes I feel that one of the characters is actually pushing me along, which is fantastic. I do notice that when that happens there's a lot of myself in it and I start asking myself where it came out from."
"I believe that writers are cannibals and that they engulf themselves in the experiences they go through. A writer eats up people and situations and transforms them into other shapes. Even people who lead relatively cushioned and easy lives can still transform an ordinary situation into an extraordinary, dramatic experience. I find that very fascinating."
"Then there are also those writers who have left their country of origin, such as Sudanese writers. I remember when I wrote Ernesto Panza, I received a call from the BBC and I should have known that to an Englishman, the name Vella and Villa must have sounded one and the same. He asked what I was doing in Malta and, flabbergasted, I answered that this is where I was born. He had thought I was South American. He found it strange that someone in Malta could write about something taking place in South America. There's nothing strange about it for me. I do my background reading and immerse myself in the culture and the atmosphere of that particular place - the rest is history."
Some of Mr Vella's stories from his latest collection, Mark of Cain, follow a very Maltese national stereotype ending while others have more of a human, universal denouement.
"Foreigners who have read Mark of Cain have said that it is universal while they have remarked that they could detect a very particular Maltese element. I gave some of the stories a date. I don't suffer from nostalgia - for me certain events or things are just as beautiful as when they happened 50 years ago.
"There are pockets of people who don't want things in Malta to change. There are peasants who are still fearsomely tied to their land and would do almost anything for it. Others have moved ahead a lot and are rubbing shoulders with everybody. I feel that some of them, especially young people, do not even care which town they come from. Places like Sliema, Siġġiewi, Rabat seem to exist no longer. There are no boundaries.
"In Malta, one of the things we suffer from is our themes. Emerging from a post-colonial country, we were swayed towards social realism where we talked about workers, work and an idealised life. We have moved on from that as people tried to go modern but we still seem to have a slight hang-up. Thematically we are still stuck in time - our local television series are living proof of this. In Mark of Cain I had to base some of my stories - such as Knotted Hate and The Vow - and characters in that type of setting because it is not something I can renounce. I am a writer and I have to write about my surroundings. The mentality of these people seems to have been stuck in post-colonial times and my job is to write about this.
"However, I do feel that Malta is going through a very interesting phase. It is in transit. Things are changing even though we all retain a different set of values. We're moving fast and some of us seem to be losing our footing. My new work is based on this and it deals with 'disturbing memories', where the word 'disturbing' can be taken both as an adjective or a verb.
"What actually disturbs me is the fact that some of us seem bent on eradicating or negating part of our history and our identity. Some of us even refuse to speak Maltese, which is quite unfair on our culture and people."
Maltese writers seem to struggle getting their work published. Some are even told that since they are Maltese they have to write in their vernacular. Yet Mr Vella has had his work published in both English and Maltese.
"I must admit that I've been very lucky over the years. Six of my plays have been staged, and I've always found people who have supported me, even though most of them have been foreigners. You do need to chase people and give the publishers a ring or two to remind them about you. I haven't got an agent. You have to be hard-headed and bloody-minded. Still, this is the age of celebrity and if anyone wants to write to acquire popularity, then Malta is not the place for that. Still, if people read your work and they like it you will get known eventually. You have to persist and accept the fact that you won't make much money out of it. The only thing you will get out of it is satisfaction.
"Over the years, my writing has become more succinct. It was never elaborate. If I can cut down twelve words to ten, I do it. But everyone has their own style and ways of saying things. It doesn't mean that it's wrong. Even Muriel Spark and Nadine Gordimer can be very elaborate at times. That is the style they would have chosen for that particular story or novel.
"I've been through modernism and post-modernism and as a writer you do find yourself asking what it is you want out of your writing; whether it should be based on technique, fireworks or the human element. I find that you will always find new ways of saying things. I love technique but it doesn't always tell you about the human condition. Writing for technique's sake is just gimmicky to me. It has no heart.
"With literature and other arts, there are always new movements and techniques. For me literature is always evolving. Literature is a continuum. So many novels are being written all over Europe and America when the present was heralded to be the demise of the novel - this just goes to show that people always find new ways of saying things; the old and the universal.
"Like most young people, when I started writing I was taken up with technique. I read about different movements and they intrigued me but over the years I discovered that what I truly cared about as a writer was the human condition."
■ Mark of Cain is published by Allied Publications.
Mr Vella starts with his inspirations. "There are so many great writers who inspire me. Whenever a reference strikes me I usually go back to it and find myself asking whether it will stand the test of time. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. The Russians have inspired me greatly, especially Dostoevsky, as well as the existentialists Sartre and Camus. I would say that where short story technique is concerned, I was mostly influenced by Guy de Maupassant and Somerset Maugham. Then I discovered female writers who gave me another perspective altogether - novelists like Nadine Gordimer and Muriel Spark have provided me with an angle which added to the whole design and structure."
Mr Vella admits to being a very slow writer. "Sometimes it takes me months to get something out into the open and it can be agonising, as if being permanently pregnant. It is a way of venting. I read about how the writing process should take place and some things have happened in me, others haven't. There's always something new that crops up."
"I do not keep to a defined structure when I'm writing. A couple of years ago John Bond was visiting, and I saw how he always has everything planned out before he actually writes it down. It's almost as if he's got everything written twice over. I must say that I do plan but it doesn't actually work for me. I leave a lot of space for improvisation and sometimes I feel that one of the characters is actually pushing me along, which is fantastic. I do notice that when that happens there's a lot of myself in it and I start asking myself where it came out from."
"I believe that writers are cannibals and that they engulf themselves in the experiences they go through. A writer eats up people and situations and transforms them into other shapes. Even people who lead relatively cushioned and easy lives can still transform an ordinary situation into an extraordinary, dramatic experience. I find that very fascinating."
"Then there are also those writers who have left their country of origin, such as Sudanese writers. I remember when I wrote Ernesto Panza, I received a call from the BBC and I should have known that to an Englishman, the name Vella and Villa must have sounded one and the same. He asked what I was doing in Malta and, flabbergasted, I answered that this is where I was born. He had thought I was South American. He found it strange that someone in Malta could write about something taking place in South America. There's nothing strange about it for me. I do my background reading and immerse myself in the culture and the atmosphere of that particular place - the rest is history."
Some of Mr Vella's stories from his latest collection, Mark of Cain, follow a very Maltese national stereotype ending while others have more of a human, universal denouement.
"Foreigners who have read Mark of Cain have said that it is universal while they have remarked that they could detect a very particular Maltese element. I gave some of the stories a date. I don't suffer from nostalgia - for me certain events or things are just as beautiful as when they happened 50 years ago.
"There are pockets of people who don't want things in Malta to change. There are peasants who are still fearsomely tied to their land and would do almost anything for it. Others have moved ahead a lot and are rubbing shoulders with everybody. I feel that some of them, especially young people, do not even care which town they come from. Places like Sliema, Siġġiewi, Rabat seem to exist no longer. There are no boundaries.
"In Malta, one of the things we suffer from is our themes. Emerging from a post-colonial country, we were swayed towards social realism where we talked about workers, work and an idealised life. We have moved on from that as people tried to go modern but we still seem to have a slight hang-up. Thematically we are still stuck in time - our local television series are living proof of this. In Mark of Cain I had to base some of my stories - such as Knotted Hate and The Vow - and characters in that type of setting because it is not something I can renounce. I am a writer and I have to write about my surroundings. The mentality of these people seems to have been stuck in post-colonial times and my job is to write about this.
"However, I do feel that Malta is going through a very interesting phase. It is in transit. Things are changing even though we all retain a different set of values. We're moving fast and some of us seem to be losing our footing. My new work is based on this and it deals with 'disturbing memories', where the word 'disturbing' can be taken both as an adjective or a verb.
"What actually disturbs me is the fact that some of us seem bent on eradicating or negating part of our history and our identity. Some of us even refuse to speak Maltese, which is quite unfair on our culture and people."
Maltese writers seem to struggle getting their work published. Some are even told that since they are Maltese they have to write in their vernacular. Yet Mr Vella has had his work published in both English and Maltese.
"I must admit that I've been very lucky over the years. Six of my plays have been staged, and I've always found people who have supported me, even though most of them have been foreigners. You do need to chase people and give the publishers a ring or two to remind them about you. I haven't got an agent. You have to be hard-headed and bloody-minded. Still, this is the age of celebrity and if anyone wants to write to acquire popularity, then Malta is not the place for that. Still, if people read your work and they like it you will get known eventually. You have to persist and accept the fact that you won't make much money out of it. The only thing you will get out of it is satisfaction.
"Over the years, my writing has become more succinct. It was never elaborate. If I can cut down twelve words to ten, I do it. But everyone has their own style and ways of saying things. It doesn't mean that it's wrong. Even Muriel Spark and Nadine Gordimer can be very elaborate at times. That is the style they would have chosen for that particular story or novel.
"I've been through modernism and post-modernism and as a writer you do find yourself asking what it is you want out of your writing; whether it should be based on technique, fireworks or the human element. I find that you will always find new ways of saying things. I love technique but it doesn't always tell you about the human condition. Writing for technique's sake is just gimmicky to me. It has no heart.
"With literature and other arts, there are always new movements and techniques. For me literature is always evolving. Literature is a continuum. So many novels are being written all over Europe and America when the present was heralded to be the demise of the novel - this just goes to show that people always find new ways of saying things; the old and the universal.
"Like most young people, when I started writing I was taken up with technique. I read about different movements and they intrigued me but over the years I discovered that what I truly cared about as a writer was the human condition."
■ Mark of Cain is published by Allied Publications.