Leading writers from nine countries and top Maltese musicians will perform at the sixth annual Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, the biggest so far, on Thursday 8, Friday 9 and Saturday 10 September at the Garden of Rest in Floriana (between the Floriana Central Public Library and Ospizio). This year’s festival will focus on The Arab Spring: Dignity and Freedom and will present an exciting array of literary genres and languages, unique voices, photographs and a short documentary on the revolution in Alexandria.

Each evening will feature live music, mostly original jazz, by Effie Azzopardi and his band In Beat and a trio formed by Jes Psaila, Alan Portelli and Luke Briffa. There will also be food, drink and specialised books for sale. The readings, which are meant for a mature audience, start at 8pm, and admission to all events is free.

The poems and short stories will be read mainly in Maltese and English, but also in the native languages of the various writers. The writers reading on Thursday are London-based Maltese poet John Aquilina, who published his first collection Leħnek il-Libsa Tiegħi in 2009, the Egyptian poet from Alexandria Abdelrehim Youssef, who will also be showing pictures of the Egyptian revolution in Alexandria in which he was very much involved, the well-known Colombian Paris-based poet Myriam Montoya, who writes in Spanish, and the Arabic language poet and novelist Tarek Eltayeb, who lives in Vienna, and was brought up in Egypt by a Sudanese father and Egyptian mother. Live music on Thursday will be provided by the recently formed jazz trio CUSP, with Jes Psaila on guitar, Luke Briffa on drums and Alan Portelli on bass.

The festival coincides with the sixth annual Malta LAF Literary Translation Workshop, led by Alexandra Büchler, director of Literature Across Frontiers, during which the participating writers will translate each other’s works.

This annual international literary festival, unique of its kind in Malta, is organised by Inizjamed and Literature Across Frontiers, with the support of the Culture Programme of the EU, Din l-Art Ħelwa, The British Council, the European Commission Representation in Malta, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture and the French Embassy in Malta. More information about the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, Inizjamed and Literature Across Frontiers is available at www.inizjamed.org

See: The Malta Independent Online