Spurred by the fact that most Maltese don’t read, Ġorġ Mallia has published a book of stories so short you can read them in a minute. And yes, it works. He shares a few words with Veronica Stivala.

Ġorġ Mallia

We don’t read any more. Well, we do, but very few of us Maltese do so regularly, and even fewer of us read books. It seems we are afraid of long stories and those dastardly bound pieces of paper (or bits and pixels on our Kindles)… books.

This information, brought to light by a study conducted by consulting firm Misco, set author, cartoonist and lecturer Ġorġ Mallia thinking. He was at the time chair of the National Book Council and had commissioned the survey himself.

The results inspired him to create the very short story book; a book comprising 200 short stories that are roughly 200 words long.

“People who do not like to read tend to be afraid of long readings. So I came up with the idea of complete stories in just 200 words, as a tempter,” he says.

Having passed the idea round friends who are writers, Mallia was encouraged to start the Facebook page “Għidli Mitejn – Tell me 200”, on January 1.

“I found that a lot of people started reading it, even ones (I found out) who are not normally readers, so that was one aim fulfilled to a certain extent,” notes Mallia.

Speaking about how to go about encouraging people to read, Mallia comments that it does absolutely no good to try and shove non-readers immediately into book reading, but getting them started on small bites is a step in the right direction.

There are stories written both in English and Maltese (one in every eight is in English) by established writers, such as Trevor Zahra, Rita Saliba, Pierre J Mejlak, Charles Casha, Alex Vella Gera, Gorg Peresso, Carmel G. Cauchi, Salv Sammut and Charles Flores and, intriguingly, also by people who had never written before.

Mallia was impressed and in his words “astounded” by the stories people came up with. He started out by publishing a story a day, but, for practical reasons, soon had to shift to one every other day.

The stories are accompanied by pictures and some by edited photos. Subject matter ranges from voting day, a confusing moment in a restaurant, a sword and sorcery fantasy, and to one, quirky fullstop-less piece about thoughts and words. Among the short stories is one by Mallia himself, that describes feelings of insignificance in a world full of identity-deprived people:

“He crawls unnoticed to a hole in the gravel, that shifts and moves, and slowly swallows him up into its void, a nothingness that barely existed and did nothing to further itself when it did.”

Now, considering that 200 words is something like 20 sentences, I have to ask: what is it like to be bound by such a tight word limit?

“It’s much more difficult to write in short than it is to write at length,” admits Mallia. But that was the challenge. Admittedly, not everybody has managed to keep it to exactly 200 words, though many have, but Mallia makes it a point that no story exceeds the limit by much.

Creativity can flourish in such parameters, however, and I’m glad to say there’s an enormous variety of output in the works published on the page.

Come November, the 200th story was published on the Facebook page, which is nearing an impressive 2,000 likes. To mark the publication of this story, Mallia has put together an e-book to be distributed free on the net.

“I want this to be out there to be read by as many people as possible,” he says. That, of course, is the whole point of it. But he is also doing a limited print-on-demand actual printing of the book for those who want it. It will not be for profit.

The book is “dedicated to all those who like to read. And also to all those who do not like to read, with the hope that these very short stories will tempt them and instill in them the endless joy that reading brings with it.”

Where does Mallia plan to go next with the project?

Mallia would love to have new writers come on board, and aims at publishing a book every 200 stories. He also has a number of ideas regarding the possibility of companion pages. “Possibly poetry. Possibly comics. All fun thoughts, but still in the planning stages so far.”

He continues to publish a short story every other day on the Facebook page ‘għidlimitejn’.

If you feel a 200-word story coming, either in English or Maltese, Mallia encourages you to send it in for consideration. “This is a really practical way of getting people to read.”

The e-book is available for free download.

www.gorgmallia.com/200.htm.