GOOD READS
For those of you who appreciate travel reading, here are our suggestions:
Nicholas Monsarrat — The Kappillan of Malta
After serving in the Royal Navy, and later as a diplomat, Liverpudlian writer, Nicholas Monsarrat, wrote The Kappillan of Malta in 1973, while living in the village of San Lawrenz, Gozo. An English novel with a pre-eminent theme of Malta, the historical novel tells the story of Father Salvatore, a humble parish priest, or kappillan, caught in the drama of the second world war and devoted to serving the poor and homeless.
Recently adapted into a play by Maltese author, Immanuel Mifsud, it’s fondly remembered for its warm depictions of day-to-day life in Malta.
Sir Walter Scott — The Siege of Malta
Scottish writer, Sir Walter Scott, is largely remembered for his historical novels (a genre he helped shape and popularize back in the early 19th century). He was the first of many to tackle the Siege of Malta – an account of Malta’s defence against Ottoman forces in 1565. Planned as part of the Waverley Series, then among the most widely read novels in Europe, it was written towards the end of author’s life, sometime in 1831-32.
It’s far from its writer’s best work, but, as a companion piece to David Ball’s The Sword and the Scimitar (2004), goes some way to show the enduring appeal of this episode in Malta’s history.
Andrea Camilleri — Il Colore Del Sole
The best-selling Sicilian writer of detective fiction is best known for his widely translated Inspector Montalbano series. In Il Colore Del Sole (2007), or ‘The Color of the Sun’, Camilleri substitutes Montalbano for his own persona, a detective-of-sorts who falls upon a diary written by the great Caravaggio during the summer of 1607 – the same year in which the real-life painter, accused of homicide in Rome, went into exile on Malta, and later Sicily.
True to Camilleri’s characterizations, Caravaggio’s writing is rendered in a sixteenth-century dialect, imaginatively reconstructing the last months of the artist’s suffered life.
AMY & SHERAGIME 06 | 10 | 18
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