March has been all about books with links to Malta. I interviewed Laura Moriarty about her best-selling novel The Chaperone, a gripping, tightly written tale of passion and repression set in the 1920s. Moriarty hit the big time with this book – the story has been picked up by film director Simon Curtis. The film script will be written by Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes and will star Elizabeth McGovern, also of Downton fame. In the interview, Moriarty talks about how living in Malta inspired her to start writing and what it feels like when Hollywood comes calling.
Susanna Hoe also writes about powerful historical women, covering an ambitious time period – her book starts with the ‘fat lady’ statuettes of the Neolithic temples and spans the centuries right up to women’s fight for the vote in Malta. She talks about how Malta’s current refugee crisis is part of a long history of immigration and emigration from the islands and describes the women who shaped this tumultuous history in the archipelago.
The Female Word takes a look at sexism in the literary world. I interviewed Maltese writers to find out if they agreed with Laura Moriarty that publishing is still skewed towards male writers – the results were surprising!
Helen Raine 