Capricious Tales from Malta – A History in its making is a collection of short stories which explores the history of Malta, at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, blurring the lines between the historical and the fictional, attempting in the process to explore the character of one of the smallest nations in the world.
Capricious Tales From Malta, is an English translation of the award winning short story collection Għall-Glorja tal-Patrija! by Aleks Farrugia. The translation, done by Adrian Scerri, retains the flavour and idiom of the original Maltese version, while introductory notes by the translator, himself a historian, place the stories within the context of Maltese History, especially useful for the non-Maltese who can now enjoy these wonderful stories inspired by the character of us Maltese.
Where does fiction end and history begins? For centuries the playground of the powers that dominated the Mediterranean, the Maltese have been forged by war, religion, migration, slavery, colonialism, fratricide and factionalism and to this day have to engage with their past as they look towards their future. These stories, with humour and pathos, introduce the reader to complex characters who often find themselves having to deal with external circumstances with wonder and unease, trying to figure out a way to belong but never really succeeding.
An encounter in Rome between a fraudster and a saint, that will alter the Holy Scriptures; an Arab philosopher left on a deserted island with just his donkey; a priest and his poet lover, breaking up to survive the fires of the Inquisition; an error by the village idiot changing the fortunes of the Great Siege of 1565; two brothers find themselves on the opposite sides of the barricade in the uprising against the Napoleonic invaders; a woman who reads to the enemy that fell from the sky during World War 2; the Maltese EU bureaucrat in Brussels whose lunch is stolen by a mysterious thief: these are just a few of the stories that make up this most original and engaging collection.
Capricious Tales From Malta (SKS publishers) is selling at €15 and is available at leading bookshops and online at www.skspublishers.com