Summer Book Festival – Gozo

The National Book Council announces it has prepared a treat for all book lovers this Summer: the Summer Book Festival – Gozo, a two-day event packed with cultural activities as well as a book fair. It will take place in Gozo on 14 and 15 July at Sir M. A. Refalo Sixth Form in Victoria. The activities in the cultural programme of the festival will be based on the themes of youth literature and poetry.

Friday 14 July is dedicated to literature for youth. Activities for this day include a panel discussion on the topic of Youth and Literature, which will touch upon various themes, among which youth literacy, and the problems of addressing youth issues without being patronising. There will also be events that focus on particular authors who have distinguished themselves in literature aimed at or concerned with youth and youth issues. Among the guests, both for the panel discussion and the author events, there will be Leanne Ellul, Antoinette Borg, Matthew Schembri, Roberta Bajada and other winners of the Literary Contest – Novels for Youth, which is co-organized by the National Book Council and Aġenzija Żgħażagħ. Summer school students from Malta and Gozo will be invited to attend the Festival with their teachers and parents, as part of their summer school programme.

Poetry will be the focus of the activities on Saturday 15 July. The main event, in honour of the late Gozitan poet Gorg Pisani, will be set up by the National Book Council and will feature readings of excerpts of the poet’s work. A number of well-known local poets will also make an appearance during the various activities in the cultural programme for Saturday. Among these Prof. Michael Zammit and Maria Grech Ganado.

The publishers/associations participating for the event are: Merlin, Glen Calleja and EDE books, Faraxa, MCA (Malta Classics Association), Horizons, SKS, Midsea.

The National Book Council invites all members of the public to remember the dates and find the time to visit the festival during the day or later in the evening. Do not miss out on this opportunity to browse through great literature while getting to meet some of the most exciting authors and poets active today on our islands.