Campus Book Festival 2020: Programme of events

  1. Kunsill Nazzjonali Tal-Ktieb
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  4. Campus Book Festival 2020: Programme of events




Posted on February 11, 2020

The National Book Council is pleased to release the programme of cultural eventsย for the Campus Book Festival 2020. As customary, the festival will take place at the University Quadrangle on 25, 26 and 27 March, from 9 amโ€“4 pm on Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26, and from 9 am till late on Friday 27.

The purpose of the Campus Book Festival is to promote literature across the board while, at the same time, giving publishers and book distributors a space in which they can sell and promote their publications with post-secondary and tertiary students. The exhibitors in this 2020 edition are BDL, Merlin Publishers, Midsea Books/Klabb Kotba Maltin, Horizons, EDE Books, SKS, Faraxa Publishing, Pjattaforma and Infinity Books, who will have their books up for sale.

The programme of this yearโ€™s Campus Festival is packed with a variety of events and activities ranging from readings and interviews with authors, to the screening of films related to literature, as well as language discussions and activities, guided tours around the University Library, live music and a number of collaborations with student organisations Gฤงaqda tal-Malti โ€“ Universitร  and DESA.

The international guest for this yearโ€™s Campus Book Festival is American poet and memoirist Mark Doty. On Wednesday 25 March at 3 pm, Doty will be part of a panel discussion on queer literature with local dramatist Tyrone Grima and Marthese Formosa, project manager behind โ€˜Kitba Queerโ€™. On Thursday 26 March Doty will be participating in a book-club session with University students lead by Dr Mario Aquilina and centred on his memoir Firebirdย (HarperCollins, 1999); and on Friday 27 March he will be interviewed by Head of English Department at UoM Prof. James Corby on his literary and non-literary output. Mark Doty will also be one of the readers during the open-mic session organised for the same day and revolving around the theme of literature and music of protest. This was organised in conjunction with Inizjamed. Mark Doty was the first American to win the T.S. Eliot Prize in the U.K in 1995, and in 2008 he won the National Book Award for the book Fire to Fire: new and selected poems (HarperCollins, 2008). He is the author of several poetry books, amongst which Bethlehem in Broad Daylightย (D.R. Godine, 1991), A Swarm, A Flock, A Host: A Compendium of Creaturesย (Prestel, 2013), and Deep Lane (W.W. Norton, 2015), and memoirs and nonfiction books such asย Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacyย (Beacon Press, 2000) and Dog Yearsย (HarperCollins, 2007), as well as Firebird. Doty has often been compared to James Merrill, Walt Whitman and C.P. Cavafy for his elegant, intelligent verse.

In collaboration with the Department of Translation, Terminology and Interpreting Studies, the Campus Book Festival 2020 will also host an interview led by Prof. Clare Vassallo with translation theorist and scholar of comparative literature Prof. Susan Bassnett. Bassnett is the author of overย twenty books, includingย Translation Studies,ย which first appeared in 1980 and has remained in print ever since, becoming an important international textbook in this field. Herย Comparative Literatureย (1993)ย has also become internationally renowned and has been translated into several languages.ย Her most recent books areย Political Discourse, Media and Translationย (2010), co-edited with Cristina Schaeffner, andย Reflections on Translationย (2011). Beside her academic research, and writing for several national newspapers, Susan Bassnett also writes poetry.

The vast programme of activities that will be put up during the festival include events organised in collaboration with many University departments as well as the publishers participating in this yearโ€™s Campus Book Festival ax exhibitors. These include the presentation of Prof. Joseph M. Pirottaโ€™s 2019-National-Book-Prize-winning book Fortress Colony. The Final Act 1945-1964 (Midsea); Prof. Charles Briffaโ€™s latest book on Mario Azzopardi published by Horizons; and the official launch of Bil-Bieb Mitbuq (Pjattaforma, 2020), Kevin Salibaโ€™s Maltese translation of Jean-Paul Sartreโ€™s playย Huis Clos. Infinity Books also organised a lecture with Fr. Marius Zerafa on the theft, recovery and restoration of Caravaggioโ€™s St Jerome Writing.

On Friday 26 March at 5 pm Jean Paul Borg will moderate a roundtable discussion on literature and music of protest in troubled times, with reference to the most recent contributions of local artists and writers: Immanuel Mifsud, Antoine Cassar, Adrian Grima, Wayne Flask, Nadia Mifsud, Mario Vella, Alex Vella Gregory and Noah Fabri. They will also take part in the Open Mic session later that evening, at 6:45 pm.

For the language and literature enthusiasts, not to miss are the events organised for Wednesday 25 March, starting at 1 pm: โ€™Are we are told what we should read?โ€™, a discussion about readersโ€™ favourites, reading lists, book prizes, book reviews and booktube and on how these affect readersโ€™, writersโ€™ and publishersโ€™ choices; and โ€˜Maltese Literature… in Englishโ€™ with Prof. Ivan Callus, Prof. Clare Vassallo, Dr Norbert Bugeja and moderated by Prof. Adrian Grima. While on Thursday 26 March at 2 pm Mark Camilleri, Dr Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone and Chris Gruppetta will engage in discussion on the divide between genre fiction, and literary and mainstream fiction in Malta, with a specific reference to mystery and detective fiction.ย 

Other highlights include events revolving around film and the limits of literary adaptation, with Franica Pulis, Prof. Saviour Catania, Rebecca Anastasi and Kenneth Scicluna; ethnography, with Dr Steve Borg on Wednesday 26 March at 11 am; around anthropology and womenโ€™s history, with Dr Veronica Veen on Thursday 26 March at 9 am; and around the revival of theatre in Maltese, at 1 pm on the same day with the participation of Dr Marco Galea, Sean Buhagiar, Simone Spiteri and Stephanie Bonnici. On Friday 27 at 10 am, Dr Christine Muscat, Dr Emanuel Buttigieg and Dr Andrea Dibben will discuss if prostitution can empower women, moving away from any dogmatic assumptions on sex as an economic means; while at 1 pm a discussion among Ranier Fsadni, Ahmed Zanya Bugri and Andrรจ Callus will look at how identity politics shapes active participation by minorities living in Malta, asking if this political approach can actually be traceable in a context where minorities are underrepresented.

For those interested in philosophy, two events are not to be missed. On Friday 26 March, at 12 noon, the Department of Philosophy will be presenting an event, moderated by Dr Jean-Paul De Lucca, revisiting philosophyโ€™s plural histories and its forgotten voices, fifty years from the death of Bertrand Russel, the author of the influential A History of Western Philosophy (1945). On the same day, at 3 pm, Francois Zammit will engage Enrico Panai in a conversation on the application of philosophy to address present day challenges.ย Panai is a Human Information Interaction Specialist and author of Skip! The Art of Avoiding Projects.

The Campus Book Festival, which is set up by the National Book Council in collaboration with Gฤงaqda tal-Malti โ€“ Universitร  and DESA, is free of charge and all discussions, presentations, interviews, book launches and book presentations are aimed at students, academics and members of the public alike.

For more information follow the Campus Book Festival FB page and this website.

Download the full programme here.

Dates and times of the 2020 Campus Book Festival: Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 from 9 amโ€“4 pm, and Friday 27 March from 9 am till late in the afternoon.

Fell free to get in touch with Matthew Borg (matthew.borg@ktieb.org.mt) from the NBC, Romario Sciberras (ghaqdatalmalti@gmail.com) from Gฤงaqda tal-Malti – Universitร , and Matthew Cilia (desa.uom@gmail.com) from DESA.

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