Author, poet, father and former convict Daniel Holmes has opened up about his “traumatic” eight and a half years imprisoned in Kordin as pre-orders for his debut expose’ become available.

In a live interview discussion at the Malta Book Festival with Lovin Malta’s founder Chris Peregin, Holmes revealed the backstory to his debut novel, A Memoir From Malta’s Prison – From A Cage, On A Rock, In A Puddle.

The explosive tell-all exposé details nearly a decade’s imprisonment in Malta’s prison, seen through the eyes of a foreign man who came to Malta looking for a peaceful life in Gozo. Instead, he was thrown into a world he had never seen, rubbing shoulders with violent criminals and exposed to darker side of the Maltese justice system.

Originally told he’d be given “five life sentences and fined for half a million euros” since prosecutors believed he was a “drug kingpin”, he was sent to prison as a supposed drug trafficker.

In the time he was inside prison, Malta legalised medical cannabis and decriminalised recreational cannabis – but it made no difference to Holmes sentence.

“I feel the time I’ve served… I feel, not over-punished, but there’s a trauma that’s been done to me now, I’m scarred now, physically and mentally,” Holmes tells Peregin during the interview.