The Malta Book Festival has now established itself as the most prestigious event  revolving around books in Malta – the foremost book celebration in the country’s cultural calendar. Organised by the National Book Council, the literary festival is one of the popular draws of the autumn months in the Maltese...

In view of the risks posed by hosting a mass event during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Book Council is regretfully announcing that the Malta Book Festival will not be taking place in its traditional brick-and-mortar form, but will be moving online. A number of small events with limited audience...

The National Book Council is pleased to release the official poster of the Malta Book Festival 2020, which is going to be held between Wednesday 11 and Sunday 15 November at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta. The illustrations of this year’s poster are by Moira Scicluna Zahra and Mark Scicluna,...

The National Book Council would like to announce the launch of a media scheme for prospective exhibitors of the Malta Book Festival 2020. Applicants may send in their application forms by 14 August to secure their place at this year’s Malta Book Festival and listing in the official programme. New...

The National Book Council (NBC) is proud to announce the dates of the Malta Book Festival 2020, which is going to be held between Wednesday 11 and Sunday 15 November at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta. Applications for exhibitors wishing to participate in this edition of the Malta Book Festival...

After much consideration, it is with disappointment but with a sense of public spirit that we must announce that the 2020 Campus Book Festival, scheduled to take place at the University of Malta from 25 to 27 March, is being postponed until further notice, following the escalation of COVID-19 Coronavirus...

While thanking the Arts Council Malta for its valuable contribution towards the visibility of Maltese writing over the past years with the Cultural Export Fund Translation Grant, the National Book Council (NBC) is be pleased announce that it will be taking over the administration of the Grant as part of...

The 2020 Campus Book Festival will be benefitting from a greater international presence over previous years. The Festival will be hosting three international guest writers and researchers from various disciplines, in collaboration with the UOM departments of Translation, Terminology and Interpreting Studies; English; and Philosophy. The public will have the...

The National Book Council is announcing the dates and the special guests for this year’s Campus Book Festival. The seventh edition of the Festival will take place between Wednesday 25 and Friday 27 March at the University of Malta Quadrangle, in collaboration with Għaqda tal-Malti – Università and the Department...

Yesterday evening the National Book Council announced the results of its 2019 Film Adaptation Fund following the premieres of Ġulina (Peter Sant), and Storja ta’ Storja (Charlie Cauchi, Martin Bonnici) at the Malta Book Festival. The fund, launched in July 2019, is intended to further promote Maltese literary works by...

The award-giving ceremony of the 2019 Doreen Micallef National Poetry Contest was celebrated on Friday 8 November at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, during the Malta Book Festival 2019. The first edition of the Contest for poetry in the Maltese language was launched in June, earlier this year. Prof. Charles Briffa,...

The Malta Book Festival has now established itself as the most prestigious event in Malta revolving around books. It will open its doors to the public tomorrow, Wednesday 6 November, and will be on until Sunday 10 November. This evening, during the Book Festival opening ceremony, the 2019 Terramaxka Prize...

F’dan l-episodju mis-sensiela Taħt il-Qoxra Rachelle Deguara tkellmet ma’ Simona Cassano, Matthew Borg u Andrew Ricca, it-tim li pprepara l-Festival Nazzjonali tal-Ktieb. Mal-mistiedna tkellmet dwar il-ħsieb wara l-Festival Nazzjonali tal-Ktieb, l-importanza tat-tfal u l-familji fit-tfassil tal-programm tal-attivitajiet, il-mistiedna internazzjonali, l-attivitajiet imtellgħin mill-Kunsill f’ħidma mal-eżebituri u msieħba oħra, u l-bqija tal-programm tal-attivitajiet...

The Malta Book Festival has now established itself as one of the biggest cultural events revolving around books and reading. With less than a week to go, we have gathered here all the information you need to know about the 2019 edition of the Festival. The programme of cultural activities...

The Malta Book Festival 2019, the most prominent and prestigious book celebration of the year, will take place at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta, starting from Wednesday 6 November and going on till Sunday 10 November. For yet another year the Malta Book Festival will be dedicating a lot of...

The National Book Council is pleased to present Judge Rosemarie Aquilina as the special guest of the 2019 Malta Book Festival. Aquilina, daughter of a Maltese father and German mother, both emigrants, is most notable for presiding over the 2018 USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal, which found former Olympic doctor Larry...

The adjudication board of the 2019 National Book Prize has been hard at work this summer to select the winning titles in the eight categories of the National Book Prize for Adults and the six categories of the Terramaxka Prize (National Book Prize for Children and Adolescents). The winners of...

The popular comedy duo Danusan and the National Book Council have teamed up once again to present a show aimed at celebrating books and reading. Excellent for families with children, the one hour and thirty minute shows ‘Il-Kotba Jieħdu l-Ħajja’ (Books Come to Life) are not to be missed, and...

The biggest book celebration in country’s cultural calendar, the Malta Book Festival, will be opening with a literary conference relating to the literary genres of sci-fi and fantasy under the title of ‘Strange New Worlds: a conference on science fiction and fantasy literature’. It will be taking place on Wednesday...

  The National Book Council is hereby announcing the shortlist of books, published in 2018, contending for the 2019 National Book Prize. The adjudication process launched in April with the publication of the longlist. On 15 July, the Adjudication Board presented the shortlist at the NBC offices, including a statement...

The Executive Chairman of the National Book Council Mark Camilleri, in the presence of the Minister for Education and Employment Evarist Bartolo, launched the first edition of the Doreen Micallef National Poetry Contest during a press conference held at the National Library of Malta in Valletta. In his speech, Camilleri...

Applications for exhibitors wishing to participate in the upcoming edition of the Malta Book Festival 2019 are open. As usual, the Festival will be held in November (from Wednesday 6 to Sunday 10) at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta. The application is open to all publishers, book distributors, bookshops...

The Campus Book Festival, organised by the National Book Council in collaboration with Għaqda tal-Malti – Università, is now in its sixth edition, and from its inception it has aimed at providing a space for Maltese publishers and authors to promote their work with a mature audience, such as university...

The National Book Prize is the highest literary prize assigned to authors, publishers and illustrators for work published locally the year before. The National Book Prize 2018 for books published in 2017 will be celebrated on Friday 30 November at Auberge de Castille. Out of a total of 25 shortlisted...

  The National Book Council is hereby releasing the National Book Prize 2018 Shortlist for books published in 2017. The Adjudication Board communicated the choice of finalists yesterday during a formal meeting at the NBC premises. The selection process started on 11 May with a total of 172 entries, out...

The National Book Council would like to notify the public that the adjudication board for the 2018 edition of the National Book Prize and the Terramaxka Prize will convene next week in order to decide on the shortlist, which will be published on the website of the Council and in...

The opening conference of the Malta Book Festival has been a permanent feature of the Festival ever since its re-branding in 2013. This year’s conference will be themed on ‘Literature in Diaspora’ and will take place on 7 November 2018 at Sir Temi Zammit Hall (MCC), starting 7pm. The participants...

The Cospicua Book Festival for Children, a new collaborative project by the National Book Council and the Cospicua Local Council, is a one-day festival that will take place on 29 April at the Bormla waterfront and will be dedicated to children and children’s literature. A total of 5 publishers will...

The Book Festival on Campus kicks off this Wednesday at 9:00 am at the University quadrangle. It will be running for three days with back-to-back activities from 9am until 4 pm on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, the last day of the Festival, activities will go on till late, ending...

The National Book Council will be taking part in the London Book Fair 2018, a yearly 3-day event held at Olympia, Kensington, in which some of the world’s largest and most important publishers, book agents and rights negotiators convene in order to broker publication deals. NBC representatives will be exhibiting...

Girl bands Fuzzhoneys and Cryptic Street will be closing off the Campus Book Festival on Friday 23 March the University’s quadrangle, playing an acoustic gig of garage rock and post-punk tunes. The performances start at 8 pm. Female duo Fuzzhoneys play garage rock, spiced up with elements of blues, a dash...

As 2018 celebrates the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the National Book Council is organising the screening of J. Searle Dawley’s silent short Frankenstein (1910). It will be followed by a discussion on its cinematographic adaptation and its impact on the collective imagination by Prof. Saviour Catania and Prof....

Artist Gabriel Buttigieg takes cue from his father Alfred’s controversial book Dik il-Qtajra (The Droplet) and uses it as inspiration for his latest series of works on paper, displayed to the public in an exhibition in Valletta last December. In this event, father and son discuss both the book and...

Award-winning Slovenian writer Jasmin B. Frelih is the special guest of this year’s Campus Book Festival, which will be held between March 21 and 23 at the University’s quadrangle. This is a unique opportunity for University students and the public to meet this exceptionally talented author in person, and to...

As part of the Campus Book Festival, Inizjamed will be organising an Open Mic session on Friday 23 March at 7 pm at the University quadrangle. The event will host special guest Jasmin B. Frelih, Slovenian author and winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. This is a unique...

Up and coming young musician and song writer Noah Fabri will be playing during the Campus Book Festival on Monday 21st March at 2 pm on the University’s quadrangle. As alternative as they come, Noah will share with the audience songs from his home-recorded digital album The psychiatrist never called...

Authors Leanne Ellul and Clare Azzopardi will come together to discuss the common threads in their books Gramma and Frejp, in particular the treatment of difficult themes like anorexia and bullying, and the challenges encountered in exploring these themes in their novels. The event, scheduled for Friday 23rd March at...

A talk on the socio-cultural importance of fairy tales within their social, living context will be given by Dr Veronica Veen at the Campus Book Festival on Friday 23 March at 3:45 pm on the University quadrangle. Dr Veen’s event involves an exhibition as well as a talk about her new book The...

What does it take to make a book by hand? Artist and poet Glen Calleja will be holding a workshop on the living art of handmade books during the Campus Book Festival held on the University’s quadrangle on Wednesday 21 March at 11 am. Glen will give a practical demonstration on...

Visual artist Jesmond Vassallo will be giving a talk about William Blake’s art of print-making, as part of the Campus Book Festival, on Wednesday 21 March at 1 pm, and again on Friday at 9 am, at the University quadrangle. Vassallo is well-known in the local art scene for his...

The National Book Council and Għaqda tal-Malti – Università are proud to present the fifth edition of the Campus Book Festival, which will be held on 21, 22 and 23 March, kicking off daily at 9 am with back-to-back activities planned until 4 pm. On Friday the activities will continue until late...

The National Book Council thanks all members of the public who visited the Malta Book Festival 2017 and took part in the various activities that were set up for them. The NBC also thanks the exhibitors and all those who took part in the organization of the Festival. At the...

The winning project of this year’s edition of the NBC Literary Short Film Contest is a 15-minute film adaptation of a short story by Prof. Joe Friggieri, Dritt għall-Punt, from his collection of short stories Nismagħhom Jgħidu. The project was submitted by Charles Stroud and his film company Mitħolma. As...

A special treat in this year’s edition of the Malta Book Festival is an event set up by the National Book Council in order to celebrate the first ever translation of a Maltese novel into Norwegian, without the use of a bridge translation. Trevor Żahra’s Il-Ħajja Sigrieta tan-Nanna Genoveffa, a...

The National Book Council is proud to present one of its better-known guests for the Summer Book Festival – EUPL winning author and poet Immanuel Mifsud, who will be reading some of his yet unpublished poetry on Saturday 15 July at 15:30. Widely considered to have been a key figure...

The second and last day of the Summer Book Festival, 15 July, will be a day dedicated to poetry in honour of the late Gozitan poet Ġorġ Pisani. Among the events planned for the day, there will be reading sessions and interviews with Maltese poets. Maria Grech Ganado, winner of...

A highlight event of the first day of the Summer Book Festival in Gozo, due on 14 July, is a panel discussion on youth culture and literature, set up by the National Book Council. Publishers and writers will engage in a conversation  on literature and young readers. The conversation will...

The Literary Contest – Novels for Youth, which is set up annually by the National Book Council in collaboration with Aġenzija Żgħażagħ, challenges authors to produce original novels of between 20, 000 and 25, 000 words that explore themes related to the experiences and choices that young adults face in...

The first day of the Summer Book Festival on 14 July will be dedicated to youth and literature. Both the National Book Council and a number of local publishers will set up events based on the chosen theme, in order to analyse different aspects of literature for youth and youth...

The Summer Book Festival, due on 14 and 15 July, will open with a book donation to Sir MA Refalo Post Secondary School, which has generously offered to host the two-day festival. Both the opening and the book donation will be made in the presence of the Hon. Minister for...

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....

The National Book Council has opened applications for exhibitors to participate in the upcoming edition of the Malta Book Festival 2017. As is customary, the Festival will be held in the first two weeks of November, 8-12, at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta. The application is open to all...

The National Book Council is issuing a call for artists to submit artwork for a Literary Art Contest, in which competitors will be asked to create a work of art based on a Maltese literary text of their own choice. A total of ten artworks will be chosen by an...

Yesterday evening the Book Festival on Campus came to an end with an event in honour of author Caroline Smailes, the special guest of the Festival. Smailes led a number of workshops on different aspects of literary writing and the art of story-telling during the three days of the Festival....

The second day of the Book Festival on Campus opened with an event that appeals strongly to those with an interest in art and philosophy. Prof. Hubertus von Amelunxen, provost of the European Graduate School (EGS) and well-known for his work as a curator and a member of art organisations,...

The Book Festival on Campus opened yesterday at 10:00 am with a book presentation for primary school children: Toni Aquilina’s translation of ‘Il-Ġgant id-Dħuli’ by Gladys Masters, published by Faraxa. The children were encouraged to read excerpts from the book, which they enjoyed immensely. In fact, the young readers were...

This year’s highlight for Malta at the London Book Fair was Walid Nabhan with his novel “L-Eżodu taċ-Ċikonji”, originally published in Maltese by Klabb Kotba Maltin. A profoundly unsettling but moving tale of Nabil, a Palestinian refugee caught up in the various dilemmas of the here-and-there and the then-and-now, the...

The National Book Council is publishing the programme of events for the Book Festival on Campus 2017, which will take place at University on the 4-5-6th of April, starting 10:00 hours and continuing till late. The purpose of the Festival is to promote literature as a whole, while at the...

The National Book Council would like to announce that during the London Book Fair 2017, which is taking place in London Olympia on 14, 15 and 16 March, poetry seminars have been prepared on the Poetry Pavilion. Poetry readings by Maltese performer Sarah Naudi have been scheduled from 11:30 am on...

As was announced in a press release earlier this week, the special guest for the 2017 Book Festival on Campus is British author Caroline Smailes. The Festival, which is the product of a collaborative effort by the National Book Council and Għaqda tal-Malti – Universita’, has as its main aim...

  The National Book Council and l-Għaqda tal-Malti – Università would like to announce that preparations for the 4th edition of the Book Festival on Campus are underway. The festival will take place from 4 to 6 April 2017 and the opening hours are from 10 am to 3 pm and...

The National Book Council would like to announce that for the third year in succession, it will participate in the upcoming London Book Fair 2017. Representatives of the council will be meeting publishers and literary agents to explore new venues and possibilities for translating and publishing Maltese literature beyond our...

The National Book Council would like to announce some of the most important dates in its cultural calendar for 2017. We suggest the general public to list down these important dates and keep them free for what is coming.   Between the 4th and the 6th of April the National...

Below please find the Winners of the ‘MONS’ AMANTE BUONTEMPO’ Poetry Contest 2016 as announced in an official ceremony on the 11th of November 2016, in Temi Zammit Hall, Mediterranean Conference Centre Valletta during the Malta Book Festival 2016: FIRST PRIZE – Louis Briffa with his poem ‘Falco Peregrinus’ SECOND PRIZE – Paul...

The National Book Council would like to thank members of the public who visited the Malta Book Festival 2016 and took part in the various activities and exhibitions that were set up for their benefit. It is very encouraging to see our efforts to make this event as educational, entertaining and...

The National Book Council is proud to announce the winners of the Terramaxka Prize 2016 – a national prize for books written for children and adolescents throughout 2015. Winners were announced on Tuesday 7th November 2016 during the official opening of the Malta Book Festival (9-13th NOV) at the Mediterranean...

This morning at 9:00 am the Minister for Education and Employment, the Hon. Evarist Bartolo, and the Executive Chairman of the National Book Council, Mark Camilleri, held a press conference to announce the 2016 edition of the Malta Book Festival at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta. The festival will be...

An extremely important guest in this year’s edition of the Malta Book Festival is no doubt Basma Abdel Aziz, the author of the acclaimed novel The Queue. A resident of Cairo, where she was born in 1976, Basma, who possesses a Master’s degree in Neuropsychiatry from Ein Shams University, is...

National Book Council (Malta) is proud to present the Malta Book Festival 2016 Promo. This year’s edition of the Festival will be taking place between the 9th and the 13th of November at MCC, Valletta and one may download a copy of the official 5-day programme of events from this...

The National Book Council would like to inform the public of a presentation it has set up in collaboration with the Department of Spanish (University of Malta) and the Spanish Embassy in Malta, together with SKS, titled ‘Cervantes and Don Quixote in Literature and Culture’. The presentation, which is one...

The National Book Council is pleased to present the Bulgarian writer Alek Popov who will be the among the special guests of this year’s edition of the Malta Book Festival. His participation will feature in two events – he is one of the guest speakers at the conference on Literature...

In anticipation of the upcoming Malta Book Festival, the National Book Council is releasing the programme for the Festival both to inform members of the public of the events that have been prepared for them and as a guide for visitors. Press this link here to download a copy: mbf-2016-programme-eng One...

The British academic and writer Patrick McGuinness will be among the special guests for this year’s edition of the Malta Book Festival. Born in Tunisia in 1968 to a Belgian French-speaking mother and an English father of Irish descent, he grew up in Belgium and also lived for periods in...

In 2015 the National Book Council decided to dedicate an event to the winner of the previous year’s Lifetime Achievement Award. As it happened, our first guest was the late Prof. Godfrey Wettinger, best known for the joint discovery and first translation of the greatest literary treasure of the country:...

The National Book Council would like to inform the public of a special event on film adaptation, which will take place in Temi Zammit Hall, MCC Valletta on Saturday at 20:00. It will feature a screening of this year’s winning entry of the NBC PBS Film Contest, Ryan Gatt’s film...

The National Book Council would like to invite all schools in Malta and Gozo to attend the Malta Book Festival 2016 which will be held from Wednesday 9th till Sunday 13th November 2016 at the Mediterranean Conference Centre (MCC) Valletta. The Malta Book Festival is the most prestigious event related...

This year the Malta Book Festival opens with a highly anticipated event – a conference on Literature and Totalitarianism.  Basma Abdel Aziz, Patrick McGuinness, Alek Popov and Immanuel Mifsud are among the special guests invited to engage in a conversation with Jurgen Balzan (journalist) on how literature typically responds to...