As many critics agree, it’s Turner’s biography which is also partly responsible for her success.

Turner was born on 21 June 1974 as Natasha Vella in St Julian’s, one of the tourist centres of Malta. She descends from an old established family who can trace their roots back to the days when the Knights of Saint John were still on the island. Her father Norman Vella owns a restaurant, in which Natasha grew up together with her sister Norma. “All this played a major role in my character formation”, she remembers, “Since I started socialising at a very tender age. And”, she adds with a twinkle, “That also explains my love for good food.”

St Julian’s is not only famous for its wonderful waterfront, the beaches and the tempting sea, but also for its night-life, that magically attracts people of every age and background. Music therefore plays an important role in the life of Natasha Turner as well. And as many young artists of her generation she made her first artistic attempts by trying to adapt poems to song lyrics. In those days Natasha wrote mainly in English, which on Malta, being a British colony up till 1964, is still a dominant colloquial tongue. During her days at the Junior College she also started writing poems in Maltese, entered a poetry contest – and won. “This experience helped me to become more confident in my writing and, above all, about myself”, Natasha states.

For more than a decade Natasha Turner has been a bilingual poet, who writes her pieces according to the language which suits them better, Maltese or English. Early in 2002 her first volume of poems, Bejn in-narratur u n-narrata (Between the author and the text), was published which caused huge attention because of the honest frankness with which Turner spoke about the various open wounds in society.

Her poems take up topics like drug abuse, social isolation, troubles within relationships but also the hunger for love and sexual desire.

Turner knows very well what she is writing about.

At the age of 20 she fell in love and became pregnant. Nine months later she gave birth to young Damon, who is today the centre of her life. But the relationship is failing, and Natasha has the courage to face the consequences. She is separating from the child’s father, something which is not unanimously accepted in her society. The consequences of her decision and also the reasons why she took that decision led Turner to turn them into poems: “Poetry turned out to be an effective catharsis for me, my own mental purification therapy. Being a very sensitive person, I vent my frustrations and pains on paper.”

It’s about broadening the horizons, for herself as well as for others, for her readers. Turner not only tries to reach this aim via poetry but also through short stories and other literary means.

But Turner is not only a poet – the Maltese market would not allow an existence purely based on literary works, especially for someone who is mainly writing in Maltese. She is, as already mentioned, a very versatile young woman. She studied French and Psychology at university, obtained her BA and has been teaching a subject called Personal and Social Education for the last seven years. She shows her love for children by writing poems and stories for children and added to that she

regularly publishes articles on pedagogic and psychological topics.

And if all that wasn’t enough she still took up new tasks. Quite recently she founded a Maltese publishing house by the name of Free spirit, which wants to encourage young writers to bring their works out into the open. The main focus lies on the Maltese language. Turner: “I love challenges and I’ll take up any good new opportunity that comes along.”

One year ago her second volume of poetry Jien-Jien (I-Me) was published. The play on words already shows Turner’s method of exploring things from their roots. The collection of poems is one great journey to the inner self, a voyage in the endless widths of one’s soul. And just like her Maltese ancestors weren’t afraid of crossing the oceans so Turner doesn’t hesitate to confront herself with the shallowness and hidden secrets of her psyche. She takes up the old Greek proverb of Gnothi seauton (recognise yourself) and she doesn’t shy away from going through these experiences again and again to find out who is the “real me”, following the Shakespearean motto “This above all, to yourself be true” (Hamlet).

Turner is meanwhile a sort of literary ambassador for her country. Right now she’s preparing for a journey to Greece where she will take part in an exchange of experiences on poetry and literature in general.

Her travels are, according to Turner, also a way to broaden her mentality and her perceptions and “may be, one day I may have the good fortune of visiting Vienna too”, she adds with a smile.

And like all good sailors she returns home to her native shore regularly since it is her family that gives her support and encouragement – and the strength to start new great journeys to still unknown shores of Natasha Turner’s body and soul.