With the leisure time that the longer days of summer bring, you can get to the end of a best-selling novel before you forget what happened in the beginning. Marie Benoît picked six ambassadors at random and asked them what they’re reading. She can’t wait to dig into some of the books they are enjoying
JASON DAVIS
Charge d’Affaires, a.i, US Embassy
I’m reading The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. It’s a fascinating historical novel, published in the 1950’s but set in 1860’s Sicily, during Garibaldi’s unification of Italy. The author’s depictions of Sicilian landscapes and daily life and customs are vivid and compelling. I came across a reference to it by E.M. Forster, who was a big fan of the novel, and was excited to get my hands on it because visits to Sicily during my time in Malta had left me wanting to know more about our fascinating neighbour to the north. It’s really a great read.
Alexandros Rallis
Ambassador of Greece to Malta
I have two books in hand, the first is Malta at War by John A. Mizzi and Mark Anthony Vella. Although since my early years I heard from my father’s brother, who was Commander of a Greek submarine, about the heavy bombings Malta endured during the Second World War, it was only after my arrival in Malta last October that I realized the extent of the damage that had been inflicted upon this island and more particularly to its cultural heritage.
Books on history always trigger my desire to read them, and through reading live the historic moments.
Malta at War conveys to readers a valid and accurate picture of the extent of the damage, inviting them, at the same time, indirectly, to focus their attention on the efforts already undertaken by the Maltese people to rebuild the island as well as the extra efforts still needed for the restoration of Malta’s cultural heritage.
The way in which the authors of the book narrate the incidents engage the reader’s imagination as if they were there, at the very moment the bombings occurred. “...Two high explosives demolished the western end of the Lazaretto on Manoel Island bringing down the roofs of two storeys which comprised the mess decks...” constitutes just an example of the authors’ ability in this direction.
The reading of Malta at War brought me closer to Malta’s history and definitely contributed to bringing me closer to the Maltese people.
Another book I am enjoying is Parthenons Promenades by Cornelia Hatziaslani.
The inauguration of the Acropolis Museum last June, triggered my interest in refreshing the values and symbolism which the sculptures of Parthenon represent. This is a unique and exceptional monument. I really enjoyed this book, letting my imagination travel to the era in which this monument was completed.
In the first part of the book you come across this exceptional monument at its peak, that is, as it had been completed in 432AD.
In the second part there is a historic recourse to the monument and the damage it suffered from ancient times until today. Apart from the well known case of a British citizen who removed part of the Parthenon sculptures and transferred them to Britain, after having hidden them for a period of seven years in Malta, something I learned from my Maltese friends, my attention was drawn to the extent of the damage to the monument in 1687 by an explosion due to the heavy bombing by the Ottomans in their effort to occupy the town.
The most exciting part of the book is its last part, where there is a reference to the Parthenon frieze, which runs in a continuous line around the exterior wall of the monument, a perimeter of 160 metres. The sculptures are one metre high and they are executed in low relief and depict the people of Athens in two processions that begin at the southwest corner and parade in opposite directions until they converge over the door of the cella at the east end of the Parthenon.
According to historians this parade represents the Panathenaic procession that was a central celebration in Athens during classical times. An excellent book!
Jean-François Delahaut
Ambassador of Belgium to Malta
Je ne voyage sans livres ni en paix ni en guerre [...]. C’est la meilleure munition que j’aie trouvé à cet humain voyage
I don’t travel without books either in peace or war... They are the best ammunition which I have found for this human journey.
Montaigne, Essais III, 3
My summer reading... “Vaste programme”, as General de Gaulle would have said! I go from one book to another as I become engrossed (mainly in the evening) in one, and then, without finishing it, go back to the other, and so it goes. I opened Something to Tell You by Hanif Kureishi just after finishing the novel Le Boulevard périphérique by Henri Bauchau, a French-speaking Belgian poet, playwright, novelist and psychoanalyst living in Paris. Le Boulevard... is set in the Paris of the 1980s. There are constant flashbacks and a sort of permanent journey between past and present and between places – Belgium in the war and Paris on le Boulevard périphérique; or at the hospital in the 1980s. When Bauchau wrote this novel in 2007, he was, incredibly, 95 years old. His text radiates a deep melancholy and a great poetic force as well.
Meanwhile I have revisited Les Vignes de Berlin, an autobiographical account by my friend and colleague, the ambassador of France to Malta, Daniel Rondeau. It reads like a novel, and is indispensable as one of the many keys to appreciate the works of this travel writer turned diplomat. Already just the very thought of reading the book on Malta which Daniel will not fail to write delights me. A book on this fascinating country which is so deeply European while being “between two worlds”, as he puts it.
In the meantime, I am sticking to the gripping study, in 712 pages, Esquisses d’une Europe nouvelle (P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2008), by a young Belgian historian, Geneviève Duchenne. Reading it you will understand why the name of the real “Founding Father” of Europe is Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894-1972) and not Jean Monnet (who, this being said, is still to be considered a great man). You could learn more on this on several sites on the internet.
Carole Johnson
Deputy British High Commissioner
There were three things I wanted to do when I first arrived in Malta five months ago – sing (tick St Paul’s Choral Society), play tennis (bit too hot at present!) and find a book club.
I was lucky with the third – I have found a group of women, and men – quite rare in UK book clubs – who get together once a month and enjoy wine and food while discussing a book we have read that month. In July I re-read Maggie O’Farrell’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – an incredible tale of a woman incarcerated for most of her life, as she did not quite fit the norms of mid-war society. It is multi-layered and bears rereading, though the twists are never quite the same second time around.
On the more serious side, I have a copy of Dan Smith’s The State of the Middle East by my bedside. Bite size chunks, coupled with maps, graphs and diagrams; bring to life one of the most complex, but also most interesting parts of the world.
Summer would not be complete without light reading, and I could not resist the new Anita Shreve Testimony. It is a book about teenagers – very relevant as I have two – and how one small mistake can have life changing consequences. Shreve writes widely, and I love the variety of settings, and the way she gets under the skin of her characters. Light, but often intense, her books make for great holiday reads!
Daniel Rondeau
Ambassador of France to Malta
This summer was considerably busy for me. I am now working with
Dr Louis Galea, the Speaker, and
Dr Sergio Piazzi (general secretary of the APM) on my venture Ulysses 2009, which consists of a maritime voyage, departing from Valletta to Beyrouth, with stopovers in Tunis, Tripoli (possibly), and Cyprus. In effect, I would like to celebrate some important personalities and ideas, which have fertilised both shores of the Mediterranean and strengthened our common identity. So many things to do, and during the month of August it is hardly easy to get in touch with all the writers and top level speakers that we would like to invite to Valletta for the beginning of this journey.
But I am reading, to start with Tim Willocks’ novel La Religion, (Jonathan Cape) which brings the Great Siege back to life. Willocks, comes from the world of American cinema and the thriller. His distant origins do not prevent him from penetrating the mystery of bygone matters with remarkable ease in more cases than one. Alexandre Dumas, Steven Spielberg and James Ellroy seem to have watched over his novelistic revival of the Great Siege. Willocks reveals this to us in a masterly tapestry. His hero is a son of the Devchirmé, the tithe of Christian children who were abducted from their families in Greece and the Balkan countries and subjected to the Ottoman drill to serve in the élite corps of the Janissaries. A man of two worlds, the East and the West, he travelled to Malta for a woman. This is a hero in Malraux style. He wages war without loving it.
What else? I also enjoy reading in the shaded garden of the residence in Zebbug and one of my favourite novels is De L’amour et autres démons, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Grasset). The Colombian writer is in my opinion one of the contemporary masters of fiction. This novel, the story of a fatal passion between a young girl – she is only 12 years old – and her exorcist, is truly a masterpiece. In a different genre, I am also reading a book about St Paul’s journey in the Mediterranean, Saint Paul sur les routes du monde romain (Cerf). It is a serious and interesting essay about the travel conditions during Roman times. Moreover, what interests me in this book is the author, Chantal Reynier, who seems to have no doubt at all about Paul’s shipwreck on the shores of Malta.
And for the last two weeks, I began reading some French novels, which will be published in September. One of them, Les Aimants (Stock), is a brief and tragic love story by Jean Marc Parisis. I like this French writer and have invited him to a conference here during Ulysses 2009.
Dr Caroline Gaudenus
Ambassador of Austria to Malta
My numerous house guests during the last few months have supplied me with a variety of books, which I have been reading this summer. Obviously my family and friends believe that I must be doing a lot of serious reading at work, so I need easy reading for my leisure time – and how right they are!
I very much enjoyed The Information Officer by Mark Mills, a story set during the Second World War in Malta, partly historical novel, partly espionage thriller, partly detective story. Since I arrived in Malta I have been reading several books on Malta’s horrendous wartime experience, about which I knew very little, and I found the description of the atmosphere in beleaguered Malta very convincing and enlightening. The story line, though sometimes a bit confusing, is nevertheless full of suspense and surprises and kept me reading long into the night.
The second book I am currently reading with much enjoyment is the 10th book in a series about the “No.1 Lady’s Detective Agency” in Botswana by Alexander McCall Smith, called Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. I have read every single one of these delightful stories which describe in a very amusing and endearing manner everyday life in Botswana through the eyes of a Botswana woman who, having embarked on opening the one and only female detective agency in Gaborone, the dusty capital of Botswana, encounters and deals with a multitude of trials and tribulations of the people around her. It captures perfectly the African atmosphere thus bringing back my deeply cherished memories of the sun baked, wide open spaces and the wonderful people of Southern Africa.
