Etching of a Shepherd’s Purse

Etching of a Shepherd’s Purse, by Francis Attard, is an anthology that gives readers an eclectic choice ranging from the one-line verse to the longest poem exceeding 100 lines.

Haikai, the vernacular and mainstream, narrative, expository, sonnet and the lyric, they are all in the book. The religious poem is there too.

The author says the writing effort was to identify the right crafting tool by which haikai in the west may one day be appreciated and its writing practised as some form of an evolutionary poetic genre rather than an unknown form.

Maltese Humour – But Seriously

Do the Maltese laugh at themselves? Do they take a joke? Is there an area of humour that should be treated with caution?

Reading Martin Morana’s book Maltese Humour – But Seriously could well provide the answers to such questions… and prove entertaining too.

The book, the author says in the introduction, is meant to show a wide range of humorous qualities the Maltese embraced over the centuries and those they are now willing to appreciate.

Laughter will always remain the best medicine.

The Maltese Connection

Peter Tyson described his book The Maltese Connection as a detective story/black comedy.

It tells the story of Dóra who moves from Iceland to Malta within the framework of a six-month cultural exchange programme. Malta is “conveniently situated at the crossroads of international crime with its French, Libyan and Sicilian connections” and Dóra soon finds herself helping a senior police officer from the crime investigation department after two female tourists are murdered.

Their quest is to catch the killer, branded the Buġibba Strangler, before the island’s tourist industry is irreparably damaged.

In Many Waters

Migration will always be a controversial topic and Ami Sands Brodoff makes the best of it in her book In Many Waters. She writes about the tough life and death that refugees have to lead and constantly face.

Two siblings travel to Malta to see what they can find out about the death of their parents, including their Maltese mother. One of them comes across a girl floating in the sea during his daily swim. She had been on a boat travelling from Libya to Malta when the vessel capsized in a storm.

Apart from migration, the novel also speaks of the clandestine Jewish community in Malta and of Libyans escaping Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

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