Kampus Kotba 2022: The Events Programme

The National Book Council (NBC) is pleased to release the events programme of Kampus Kotba – the 2022 Campus Book Festival, taking place between Wednesday 23 and Friday 25 March at the University of Malta Quadrangle.

The programme for Malta’s second-biggest book festival is specially curated for tertiary education students with a range of activities also of interest to the general public. Events include book presentations, book club sessions, panel discussions on literature and publishing, with interviews with local and international authors.

Celebrating EU Prize for Literature winners from Malta and Ireland

The international guest of the Festival is the Irish EU Prize for Literature (EUPL) winner in 2019, Jan Carson. She is the author of The Fire Starters (Doubleday), and of a number of other major prize winning titles, with her latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022. On Wednesday at 2pm Carson will be speaking about her literary works with the Maltese writer Leanne Ellul. Earlier Carson will also be participating in a book club session with students from the UM English Department led by Prof. James Corby to discuss her inventive short story collection The Last Resort (Doubleday).

On Thursday at 12pm Carson will be joining fellow Maltese EUPL winner Lara Calleja to exchange their thoughts about the opportunities afforded by the Prize as well as their books in a discussion moderated by Robert Pisani. This session will be of particular interest to all those who want to know more about the EUPL thanks to the participation of Joseph Lia, Head of the Creative Europe Office in Malta. The participation of Jan Carson at the Festival is a collaboration between the NBC and Creative Europe Desk Malta.

Lara Calleja will also discussing her 2021 National Book Prize winning book Kissirtu Kullimkien (Merlin Publishers) in a book club session with students from the UM Department of Maltese moderated by Justine Sommerville.

The Campus Book Festival provides a space for students to engage with current works of fiction or research and their authors and publishers; in collaboration with a number of UM student organisations, this year’s programme includes book discussions by HoASA and Studenti Graffiti. Publishers including Klabb Kotba Maltin, Horizons and Kite Group will also be presenting new publications.

Panel discussions: Peter Serracino Inglott, Artificial Intelligence and the essay

The Festival opens with a discussion moderated by François Zammit revisiting the intellectual and cultural contribution of Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott on the year marking a decade since his passing. The speakers addressing the philosophical, aesthetic, political, educational and religious work of this prominent figure include Ranier Fsadni, Prof. Kenneth Wain and Dr Jean-Paul De Lucca.

Another panel on Thursday 24 March will bring together professionals from the publishing sector and researchers to discuss the technological needs of the publishing industry and how ongoing efforts in the development of Maltese computational tools could be of assistance to the industry. Senior lecturer specialising in computational linguistics and Maltese language resources Dr Claudia Borg will be leading this exchange with publisher Chris Gruppetta, translator Donatienne Spiteri, and Proofreading Malta editor and business owner Elizabeth Cortis.

The genre of the essay and its local context will be examined by PhD student Jessica Micallef and Dr Immanuel Mifsud from the UM Maltese Department, who will be joined by the editor of The Essay at the Limits: Poetics, Politics and Form (Bloomsbury) and the upcoming Edinburgh Companion to the Essay (2022) Dr Mario Aquilina to evaluate Malta’s public intellectuals’ written contribution in this genre.

Kampus Kotba comes to a close on Friday 25 March when it hosts an Open Mic evening organised in collaboration with Inizjamed and the participation of special guest Lara Calleja. The Open Mic concept offers a platform to anyone who would like to share their art through the spoken word.

The 2022 Campus Book Festival events programme is being organised in collaboration with Għaqda tal-Malti – Università, DESA (Department of English Students’ Association), HoASA (the History of Art and Fine Arts Students’ Association), SPS (Students’ Philosophical Society), Studenti Graffitti, Department of Philosophy, the Department of Maltese, the Department of English, the Department of Translation, Terminology and Interpreting Studies, and the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Malta.

Download here the 2022 Campus Book Festival Events Programme.