Inizjamed, the Maltese-based cultural organisation devoted to promoting literature and translation has just published xtaqt li kont merkurju (I would have loved to be mercury) a book including 122 poems that were translated into Maltese during the translation workshops of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival’s first 16 editions. Both Massimo Barilla and Elizabeth Grech (Mana Chuma Teatro) feature among the 60 authors and 25 translators included in this anthology.
Celebrating poetry and translation, the title of this anthology, xtaqt li kont merkurju, is the first line of one of the poems and it 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”.
Editors: Kit Azzopardi, Claudia Gauci, Justine Somerville
Cover design and setting: Aprille Zammit
Proofreading: Keith Attard
Printing: Progress Press
Price: €15
xtaqt li kont merkurju can be purchased on:
https://www.malliadamatobooks.com
