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Mario Azzopardi’s book Verġni Sagri, Demonji u Boloh għal Alla (Sacred Virgins, Demons and Holy Fools) is the winning title in the category of research in the humanities in this year’s edition of the National Book Prize.

Published by Horizons, the volume explores the intriguing interrelationship between religious expression and theatre. Although this theme has been explored, new insights from, for example, neuroscience, have resulted in an upsurge of interest in the interstices of religious experience and the dynamism of theatre.

The book’s sections analyse religious and mystic elements in the classic works of great authors such as Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and mystics like Hrotsvita, Hildegard von Bingen, Teresa of Avila, Juan de la Cruz and Fr John Bosco.

Azzopardi’s interest in the dramatic motif of mystical experience ties in with Julia Kristeva’s examination of Teresa of Avila in the French philosopher’s latest novel, a 700-page tour de force, published on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the mystic’s birth.

Interweaves socio-political aspects with psychological, cultural and religious dimensions

Verġni Sagri also includes a dramatisation of a scandal that gripped 17th-century France when a Jesuit friar was accused of seducing an adolescent girl during confession.

Azzopardi’s book interweaves sociopolitical aspects with psychological, cultural and religious dimensions in a time frame ranging from Europe in the Middle Ages to the mid 20th century.

It was the only volume in the category of Research in the Humanities for the 2014 Prize that is written in Maltese. The idea, as the author explains, is for the strengthening of specialised technical language in Maltese in an area that is barely explored locally, thus expanding the limits of theatre studies in Malta.