Xtaqt li kont merkurju binds together 61 poets from around the globe, 24 Maltese translators, 25 years of Inizjamed, and 17 years of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival.
Its title, Xtaqt li kont merkurju, is the first line of one of the poems featured in the anthology, and was chosen because mercury’s flexible and transformative nature as a metal liquid represents the flexibility needed in the literary translation process and its transformative potential. As Adrian Grima writes in the anthology’s introduction, it is not only the original text which is “created anew, but also the language it is translated into”.
In order to celebrate this anthology, which was published in 2022 during the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival of the same year, Inizjamed is having a poetry reading on July 27 at Couvre Port, Birgu – the place which birthed the Festival.
Readings will be held in Maltese and there will be both music and a glass of wine. Amongst the reader of the event there will be Keith Borg, Leanne Ellul, Antoine Cassar, Jean Paul Borg, John P. Portelli, Rita Saliba, Simone Inguanez, Ken Scicluna and the editors of the anthology dedicated to Maria Grech Ganado: Kit Azzopardi, Claudia Gauci and Justine Somerville. Noah Fabri will be playing music during the event.
Entrance is free. This event is being supported by the Birgu Local Council and is part of the run up for the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival 2023, being held between August 21 and 27. For more information visit www.inizjamed.org or the Facebook event.
