C. S. Lewis said ‘We want to see with other eyes, to­ imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own’ as a means of explaining why humans appreciate literature. In terms of romance novels, readers tends to find themselves either comparing their amorous relationships with that of the featured couple, or yearning for that ideal relationship which the novel projects.

In local literary circles, Alfred Sant is an author more usually admired than read. It’s not that Sant’s books are bad: au contraire, they are probably the closest Maltese literature ever got to a ‘proper’ postmodern discourse. Sant’s last novel, cryptically titled L-Għalqa tal-Iskarjota, is something else, however. It features a cleverly plotted story that makes you turn the pages well into the night.

That the Beatles are immortal is hardly a point to be disputed. A pointer to their perpetual status might be found in the hallucinogenic, Carnivalesque whirl of their art, found particularly in their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the fantastical Magical Mystery Tour that followed it - the albums that propelled them to god-like status.

Our story concerns a girl of very plain features: another plain Jane, in fact. This Jane had a pale face and a small, delicate body, and she always dressed up in the same old, dark green, velvet dress and nifty ankle boots. She had the remarkable talent of going unnoticed, and this suited her remarkably well...

It was 25th October 1956. Aaron was enjoying the symphony of the birds as he observed their dynamic flight patterns, which made a most spectacular sight. This was harmonized, almost, by a host of cirrus clouds that filled the late autumn sky. He set off for a walk along the Honig Bridge in Konigsberg, Germany, as he liked to do on a warm Sunday afternoon...

You are born ignorant, immobile and speechless. Twenty years later...

Blue and red Collide On the steps Of statues, Ears pound with the Rain of fireworks That could compete With winter storms, And I can hear, I can hear So much, But the words; I can Understand So little. But my eyes understand The celebration of life, Beneath the fire of The August sun, What [...]

Bones are blurred b’neath a blanket of tears All the while I’ve been bored Staring at a snaking procession Of the Santa Muerte. A pastiche of devotees stutter Out their cobbled prayers; The red rum weighs down on my stomach The drink wakes up the snake. I don’t share their sweating pilgrimage, The shivering prayer [...]

A primary scope for postcolonial theory would be to provide a backdrop for the analysis of that literature which portrays a colonised land and its aftermath; a literature which is, first and foremost, rooted in socio-politics. Postcolonial theory is most commonly applied to African, Australian, Indian and some American literatures; however this is too narrow [...]

In his essay ‘Ars Nova’ (1962), Maurice Blanchot presents an argument against a certain kind of ‘order’ in poetics by claiming that: If the musician renounces with austere rigor the continuity of a unified work…, he does so not in order to deny all coherence or the value of form, or even to oppose the [...]