Luċija Tells... and other publications by Veronica Veen.

As we all know, history mainly deals with public life, so dynastic, military or political issues, mostly revolving around the struggle for power. In line with the very nature of society, this means that it is largely a male affair.

Women’s life, and their experience of it, is only recorded if it concerns extremes like prostitution or criminality. Women had considerable informal power in traditional Maltese, and especially Gozitan society: they were no less than the centre of the house and the house was the centre of the world. Very little of this found its way to official, written sources.

Women’s history is another history, which needs alternative sources to be told, like oral history and the women’ s telling tradition.

Luċija Tells... Women’s History and Experience of life on Gozo, Malta combines eight interviews with the same Gozitan woman noted down over more than 30 years of cultural anthropological fieldwork especially on Gozo, with some 14 essayistic exercises in line with the topics emerging from the interviews.

Veronica Veen is an art historian/archaeologist and cultural anthropologist, specialised in symbolic anthropology and women’s studies. She has been active in the Maltese field for more than 30 years. She has published, among other subjects, on the Neolithic cultures of Malta and The Netherlands and on the women’s telling tradition of Malta and Gozo.

For more information, e-mail maltabooksvv@gmail.com.