The Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival comes to a close tonight at Fort St Elmo, Valletta, at 8pm.
The focus will be on Maltese novelist and short story writer Rita Saliba, French performance poet Samantha Barendson, and the world-famous Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury, who will also be interviewed in English by Norbert Bugeja.
Tonight being the last night of the festival, the poets and authors who participated in the previous two evenings’ readings will also regale the audience present with a brief taste of their works. These are: Joe P. Galea, Mark Vella and Abigail Ardelle Zammit from Malta; Ciwanmerd Kulek from Kurdistan/Turkey; Roja Chamankar
from Iran; Rodolfo Häsler from Cuba; Abderrahim Sail from Morocco; and Marc Nair from Singapore.
Some of the literature read during the festival might require an adult audience.
LOML by Gilbert Calleja and Matthew Attard, another short film commissioned by Inizjamed and the Valletta 2018 Foundation, will also premiere during this evening’s activities. It is inspired by Ray Mahoney’s poem Tibqa’ Int and will be introduced by Caldon Mercieca.
Live jazz music for the night will be provided by Francesca Galea (vocals) and Kris Spiteri (piano).
The festival is organised by Inizjamed, a network partner of Literature Across
Frontiers which coordinates the Literary Europe Live platform (funded by the EU’s Creative Europe programme) of which the festival forms part.
For more information on the festival, log on to Facebook or visit http://inizjamedmalta.wordpress.com .
■ The 2016 edition of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival and the Malta LAF translation workshop are being held with the support of Arts Council Malta, Heritage Malta, Valletta 2018 Foundation, Għaqda tal-Malti – Università, the Fortress Builders – Fortifications Interpretation Centre, Spazju Kreattiv, and Highlight Arts. The festival is the recipient of the EFFE Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe label.