Literary entushiasts packed the main hall of FORTRESS BUILDERS in Valletta for the launch of  WESTERN – Bejn rakkonti, bejn divertimenti, Alfred Sant’s  collection of ten new stories during a literary soiree. Sean Buhagiar and Marilu Vella were superb in their  interpretations  of various excerpts from the book which were preceeded with  literary introductions by Albert Marshall.   Alfred Sant signed copies of the anthology at the end of the soiree. The author will also sign copies of the book during the National Book Festival on Sunday 13 November between 11am and noon at the SKS Publishers Stand.

In WESTERN the story, which shares its title with WESTERN the book, we follow the adventures of “il-Malti” – “the Maltese guy” who  ends up in the Wyoming of the late 1860s. However, WESTERN the book goes beyond its title story. The themes of love and despair, nostalgia and broken memories, ambition and delusion always prevalent in Alfred Sant’s writings, recur though with the twists that characterize this twenty first century in its early decades .

The stories in WESTERN can be read as simple narratives, in which people try to make the best of their lives. At another level, many of them can be read as reflections on the Maltese condition, now and in the past. How do we shape up compared to how we see ourselves and how others see us? In this sense, the Maltese cowboy with his failures and his highs, becomes a symbol of all Maltese endeavours, past, present and maybe future.

The WESTERN stories come in the wake of two other best selling collections of stories by Sant, PUPU FIL-BAĦAR and ĊPAR, also published by SKS.