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Adrian Grima is a lecturer in Maltese literature at the University of Malta. He is the coordinator of the cultural organization Inizjamed and the Maltese correspondent of the Babelmed.net website about culture in the Mediterranean. His doctoral thesis dealt with the creation of the Maltese national imaginary in Maltese literature. Adrian Grima has read papers about Maltese literature, the Mediterranean and cultural activism at conferences and seminars in Europe, the USA and the Caribbean. In 1999 he published 'It-Trumbettier,' a collection of poems in Maltese with translations in English which placed second in the Tivoli Prize for books by Young European poets. His poetry has also appeared in publications in France, Italy, Israel and Cyprus. He is the editor of 'F�Kull Belt Hemm Kantuniera' (Inizjamed, 2003) and other collections of contemporary Maltese literature. ADRIAN'S INFLUENCES"I suppose I'm obsessed with producing things. I want to know that at the end of something I've experienced or worked on there will be some kind of tangible memory that stretches mischievously beyond itself. That's probably why I write. I must say that I'm more interested in why others write than why I write. I don't know why. Perhaps it's got something to do with the fact that I don't feature much in what I write. There's always something more interesting happening elsewhere... But I'm aware of my passion for getting things done and even though I squeeze it into these uncanny time corners, writing literature allows me to produce. I know I'm influenced by people who want to change the world and do so. One such person is Tonino Perna. Another is Stephanos Stephanides. But there's also Vince Caruana, Eric Van Monckhoven, Adrian Mamo, Nathalie... The thing is I meet interesting people and fascinating projects all the time. Two of the best critics of what I write have been Marco Galea and Nathalie, my wife; more recently Clare Azzopardi, Stanley Borg and Maria Grech Ganado have been very helpful as well.
I like the poetry of Kevin MacNeil and Sinead Morrissey and much of what is produced by the writers within Inizjamed. I really enjoyed reading Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" and love Garcia Marquez, of course." RELATED LINKS
Adrian's personal website
The Inizjamed website
The website of the Babelmed site about culture in the Mediterranean
The website of the Maltese Fair Trade Cooperative
Maria Grech Ganado's Article, 'Contemporary Writing in Malta'
Clare Azzopardi's Showcase Page
Stanley Borg's Showcase Page 
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The place I used to phone from every evening, in a small, over-heated L-shaped room, with booths laid all around that looked like cells, well-decorated, in each a prisoner hanging on, and clutching the receiver covered in finger prints; in the place I used to phone from every evening, close to a tall, thickly-red-bearded man, who spoke so loud he could be heard outside; there was this man not quite in his right mind, who used to make a cent or two by going round and selling cards with a few units left which he would find and keep after we'd left; some people tried to keep out of his way, to keep their pockets under strict surveillance; others were actually afraid of him, while others hardly noticed he was there; then there were those who stopped to speak to him, inventing things to keep the exchange going, taking a break from their own imprisonment. Reproduced with permission Translated by Maria Grech Ganado
London by night The rags and cardboard boxes, The few sane words I heard Witty and light; The secret vow I made Never to repeat London by night. Landin! The blight That lets you smell the spirit in her breath by nite, That sees you drunk in some cold corner, huddled tight, Ignores your call and leaves you to your plight. Landin, alright. Now I�m here With a roof over my head, fully fed and warm in bed, but those bewildered faces are still sights of a London by night. Reproduced with permission Translated by Maria Grech Ganado
Since, at all costs, you want the moon by day and since I�m meant to grant your every wish, I offer you a sun emerging from a cloud but no! it�s �that� you want; you don�t want �this�. And so, despite the day, you still wait for the moon and I know, in my heart, it can�t appear. I offer you some memory, a moon that�s full, but you want it right now, identical. Because, even by day, you want to grasp the moon; I don�t know what to do to make you glad. �There are days�, I explain. �And there are days�� But you don�t want the whys and wherefores. You just want �that�! Reproduced with permission Translated by Maria Grech Ganado
He�s six foot four but before the screen, while he reads the names and consonants � especially the consonants � he�s as small as childhood watching cartoons; and he wants to taste each word � complete � like a rough bit of wood or a clove of garlic, like a memory crushed against the sides, and before, giving a lasting tang to words. �Congo deux mille,� he says. �Here you�ll find all you want.� And for a moment he seals his eyes. Then he resumes hanging on every sound of every word in French, of every Congolese name, and I recall a country of solid values, the last bastion of Right in a world of vice, and the welcome he got from the army and police with a white handkerchief across their mouths and an improvised cell for a hundred men jailed for nine months in the name of Right. Bukavu, Uvira, Lubumbashi, Bunia, Kisangani. To write my poetry I will buy these names, so that when you read them they can jingle like coins in your head, or be saved in the cell of your gaze. �L'Etat exerce-t-il aujourd'hui sa souverainet� sur l'ensemble du territoire?� asks Le Monde. �Oui et non, reponde le chef de l'Etat congolais.� Neither yes nor no. Click. Perhaps Bukavu�s no longer in the hands of rebel Rwandans. Click. Perhaps you can stop this projector. click, and sleep, and survive. Click. And that�s not your father gunned down, click, and your mother�s not underground. click, and you didn�t lose Jean in Bunia. Click. Somewhere there�s ten years between familiar uniforms, between silence and a laden rifle. �Now it�s three weeks since I�ve spoken to her, to my sister.� And the distance is spread out in his eyes, I think. His knees touch the dashboard. �If I died I�m afraid it wouldn�t solve anything.� In this small space I don�t know what to do with my eyes and my words. And there�s a petrified silence around us. Click. Reproduced with permission Translated by Maria Grech Ganado
�Throughout the negotiations our aim would be to bring the Greeks up against the Turkish refusal to accept enosis and so condition them to accept a solution which would leave sovereignity in our hands.�1 British Defence Minister Lloyd, 1955
Reproduced with permission Translated by Maria Grech Ganado View My Guestbook Sign My Guestbook MESSAGE |
