This Maltese Author Is Kick-Starting The Conversation On Catholicism’s Effect On Women’s Rights In Malta
Award-winning author Loranne Vella is launching her latest book this Friday, and she’s kickstarting the national conversation on Catholicism’s effect on women’s rights.
Marta Marta, the name of her new book, is a polyphonic novel in Maltese which symbolically addresses key themes and preoccupations of current Maltese life.
Speaking with Lovin Malta, Vella said: “I wanted to write a novel in Maltese that imaginatively evokes the uniqueness of Maltese cultural and social reality in order to address certain unexamined issues concerning women’s economic and reproductive rights, and questions related to gender and identity.”
“I attempted to do this by looking at the way these matters continue to be influenced by our Catholic heritage, within the highly patriarchal structures that we insist on perpetuating. With Marta Marta, I sought a way to begin this conversation in our mother tongue,” she explained.
As such, the book provides the groundwork for political and cultural discussion that enriches the discourse in Malta on topics such as sexuality, abortion, feminism, gender identity and the prevalence of the Catholic and patriarchal hegemony.
The intention is also to ask such questions and explore the various answers from a local angle and through the Maltese language itself. While being of a narratively experimental nature, Marta Marta employs archetypes and common Maltese cultural touchstones – such as religious iconography – to position its characters and their trajectory.
The publication of Marta Marta is also being aided by the Book Fund of the National Book Council.
The book launch will take place over three evenings, from 29th April till 1st May 2022 at Rosa Kwir Gallery 38, Main Street, Balzan, BZN 1259.
The launch is a collaboration between the author, Kixott, Ede Books, and Rosa Kwir founders Romeo Roxman Gatt and Charlie Cauchi.
Loranne Vella is a Maltese novelist and short story writer. She translates plays and children’s books from French, German and Spanish into Maltese, and directs the performance collective Barumbara Collective in Belgium.
Back in 2018, Vella won the National Book Prize with her novel Rokit (Merlin Publishers, 2017).
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