Lorella Fava takes a look at the activities being held during the third edition of Il-Festival tal-Ktieb fuq il-Kampus that aims to be ‘bigger and better’ than in previous years in a bid to encourage more students to read.

Il-Festival tal-Ktieb fuq il-Kampus (the book festival on campus), back for its third edition this week, plans to be bigger and better than ever before.

Maria Muscat from the National Book Council explains how it all started: “Festival tal-Ktieb fuq il-Kampus didn’t come about as a result of mere inspiration but rather in a bid to address a deplorable lacuna in the literary field.

“The National Book Council and Għaqda tal-Malti – Università wanted to collaborate on a festival that focuses on quality books and literary events for students, their lecturers and friends – essentially, a more compact version of the annual Malta Book Festival (also organised by the NBC) that targets students by proposing quality reading aside from their coursework literature.”

Muscat claims that this time around the festival will be “much much more – and we say this with pride!”

Expanding on this a little further, she says:

“The past two years have been a real learning curve but our aims have always been the same. We’ve branched out more, we’ve attracted a more varied list of exhibitors and performers and focused on creating a more dynamic events programme.

We aim to bridge the gap between the active literary community, the lecturing staff, students’ associations, publishers, distributors and other students on campus

“Visually speaking, we’re also setting up our festival tent differently, opening up more spaces where one can lounge, read and chat.”

The festival will include a variety of activities ranging from workshops to films, from readings to discussions and so on.

The university library will also be opening its doors to students and visitors with a series of “interesting activities and tours to less accessible areas of the library”.

The Għaqda tal-Malti is exhibiting the photos submitted for the competition Ħudli Ritratt (take a picture of me) while Matthew Schembri has set up an art installation entitled Ixorbu l-Kotba (drink books).

This year’s special festival guest is Icelandic writer Gerður Kristný who will be on campus for the events scheduled on each of the three days.

Tomorrow, Kristný will be giving a workshop related to the rewriting of Norse Mythology and on Thursday, she will be closing off the festival with a reading of her work followed by a Q&A session.

When asked what the National Book Council hopes to achieve through the festival, Muscat says that their goal is in reality very simple: “We’d like to see university students reading more and better books.”

“We aim to bridge the gap between the active literary community, the lecturing staff, students’ associations, publishers, distributors and other students on campus by creating a fitting and varied events programme.

“Our festival tent is open to all who are looking for a good read, a chat about books, for those who are willing to make time for a workshop or two and get to know more about Malta’s publishing industry.”

The festival starts today and runs until Thursday at the University Quadrangle – from 9am till 2pm and from 4pm until late.

The activities are being organised by Mark Scicluna and Moira Zahra, ESO, Insite, Faraxa Books, KSU (Education Commission), Highlight Arts, Inizjamed, Glen Calleja, Għaqda tal-Malti, Trevor Zahra, Fat Lady Productions, Akkademja tal-Malti, Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ktieb, Taħżiż, Aġenzija Żgħażagħ, Miriam Calleja, EDE, Mistura, Michael Spagnol, Graphic Novel Society, the National Council for the Maltese Languages and DESA.

The Għaqda tal-Malta and the National Book Council will also be present in the festival tent to answer any queries and give out tokens to the first 100 who visit the festival. More details can be found on their Facebook events page including a handy three-day timetable of events: www.facebook.com/events/923489227765196/.

Copies of the programme of events may also be picked up from the festival tent. The festival is open to all free of charge.