A Franco-Italian conference on Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese adventure comics is taking place on April 29 and 30 in Valletta.
Although the entirety of Pratt’s (1927–1995) comic-book oeuvre is today rightly regarded as both art and literature, it is undoubtedly the stories featuring Corto Maltese that have most profoundly shaped the collective imagination across several generations.
The conference, organised by Dominique Lanni and Fabrizio Foni (lecturers in the Department of French and the Department of Italian at the University of Malta, respectively), aims to explore how Europe’s most celebrated comic-strip sailor has evolved over time, examining his legacy, key turning points in his stories, and how he has been reinterpreted over the years.
Its scope ranges from the cultural influences that informed his creation to the successors who have, in various ways, taken up Pratt’s mantle.
As keynote speakers, the conference is hosting two distinguished specialists in Pratt’s work: the French scholar Michel Pierre, an expert in colonial history and comics, and the Italian Laura Scarpa, an author, editor and lecturer in comics, who heads the association and publishing house ComicOut.
The decision to hold this first Maltese conference dedicated to Pratt’s (anti-)hero in the nation’s capital is a fittingly symbolic one: in fiction, the popular character, the son of a sailor from Tintagel, in Cornwall, and a gypsy woman from Seville, was born on July 10, 1887, in Valletta.
Titled Sur les traces de Hugo Pratt. Corto Maltese entre héritages, ruptures et renouveau / Sulle tracce di Hugo Pratt. Corto Maltese tra eredità, rotture e rinnovamento” (‘In the Footsteps of Hugo Pratt: Corto Maltese between Legacies, Ruptures, and Renewal’), will take place on April 29, from 2 to 5pm at the Italian Cultural Institute (St George’s Square), from 6 to 7.30pm at Din L-Art Ħelwa (133 Melita Street). On April 20, the conference will continue from 9am to 12.30pm at the Italian Cultural Institute.
The conference is organised with the support of the Embassy of Italy, the Embassy of France, Din L-Art Ħelwa, as well as the Department of Italian, the Department of French and the M.A. in Film Studies of the University of Malta’s Faculty of Arts.
