Praspar Press

04/12/2023

The Scintillas Corner by the till at the London Review Bookshop is going strong for a third year! 💚

02/12/2023

FREE postage for online orders till 31 Dec! Last Christmas orders 10 Dec, with later orders shipping in January. UK only. https://www.praspar.com/products

20/11/2023

The National Book Council of Malta is looking for experienced Maltese to English literary translators as part of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. More information here: https://ktieb.org.mt/en/news/call-for-literary-translators-the-commonwealth-short-story-prize-2024/?fbclid=IwAR1SsDyvMOI4r5nh02IMYy_JrB12Jlw6mcRkhUaM5Fm2hRT2xz4EpYqVdTU_aem_AY0PxDlor5O100-_uQd7Adky4KgjDWX7a-rIHQOjZsII2NEvvl3yJsopUwhMZyO4B6g

Posted on November 20, 2023 The National Book Council (NBC) is excited to extend an invitation to skilled Maltese-English translators to contribute their expertise to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2024. 7,359 writers submitted a short story. Out of these a record-breaking number of submissions....

15/11/2023

Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter! We’ll be announcing the submission period for Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 4 here first! http://tinyletter.com/prasparpress

14/11/2023

Copies of Scintillas 2 and 3 at the Hastings Bookshop in their rightful place hovering above a couple of Nobel Prize winners 🏆🏆🏆

11/11/2023

Sending out the first flurry of Scintillas 3 and restocking the London Review Bookshop 🌞

10/11/2023

Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 3 is now available to UK readers from our website! We’re also sending copies to our supportive UK stockists over the next few days https://www.praspar.com/product/scintillas-new-maltese-writing-3

Praspar Press is a voluntarily-run press and receives funding for design, print and translation costs from the National Book Council of Malta, with all money made from sales going back into the press.
We were so shocked when Scintillas 1 sold out its 300 book print run and when our first book by Loranne Vella had to be reprinted and was shortlisted for the Society of Authors First Translation Prize recognising us as an editor-translator team. We were also shocked to be regional finalists for Small Press of the Year at the British Book Awards!
We continue to be surprised and amazed by the popularity and rave reader feedback about the anthologies and our single-author titles.
The submission period for Scintillas 4 will open soon, and as always, submissions are open to all and are read anonymously.
We founded Praspar Press because no one else was publishing Maltese literature in the UK, and though it’s hard work alongside full-time jobs, it’s been worth it to give writers we love a platform and to help with showcasing and connecting the international Maltese writing community.
Thanks for all the support 🌞

09/11/2023

We now have a newsletter! Sign up to be the first to know about our new releases, our submissions periods, our events, and other Praspar opportunities and news! http://tinyletter.com/PrasparPress

22/10/2023

Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 3 was launched last night at Malta Book Festival! Thank you to our great interviewer and author Clare Azzopardi, and our readers Jacques Borg Barthet, Ambrose Galea, Davinia Hamilton, Matthew Schembri and Jake Buttigieg. Scintillas 3 is available from Mallia & D’Amato today at the Festival and afterwards from their online shop. UK pre-orders will open soon and we’ll be sending them off to UK stockists in a couple of weeks. We also held an editing workshop while at the Festival, which was a lot of fun. With thanks to the National Book Council of Malta for funding the anthology and for bringing us to the festival.

09/10/2023

Look what just arrived from the printers! 💛 Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 3 is launching next week at Malta Book Festival and will soon be available from our webshop and stockists 💛 Produced with funding from the National Book Council of Malta 💛

28/09/2023

A few hours before launching Scintillas 3 at Malta Book Festival we’ll be leading an editing workshop - find out how to register here!

31/08/2023

Our Summer / Women in Translation Month Sale for UK-based readers ends tonight!

Browse all products from Praspar Press.

29/08/2023

We’re very excited to announce that the winner of the Praspar Press Translation Prize 2023 is Daniel Cossai 🎉

Daniel’s translation of an excerpt from ‘Qarn’ by Romeo Roxman Gatt will be published in Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 3 this October.

This year’s prize was judged by Aphroconfuso editors Loranne Vella and Joe Gatt, and Praspar Press editors Kat Storace and Jen Calleja.

Well done again to our shortlisted translators Daniela Cordina and MJ Camilleri.

The Praspar Press Translation Prize commenced last year, and our first winner was Louise Camilleri O’Keefe.

25/08/2023

HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT 📣 We’re over the moon to say that we’ve been awarded translation funding for Loranne Vella’s incredible National Book Prize-winning novel Rokit! 🚀

Rokit will be translated by Kat Storace, who was shortlisted for the Society of Authors TA First Translation Prize for her translation of Vella’s short story collection ‘what will it take for me to leave’, which we published in 2021. We will be publishing the translation of Rokit in autumn 2024.

Rokit is a gripping work of eco-fiction set in a futuristic Malta. It’s 2064, and the European continent is disintegrating: walls are up, and communication structures are down. A car crash in Croatia leaves Rika Dimech, world famous fractal photographer, dead. Her 21-year old nephew, Petrel Dimech, the war photographer, decides to travel by sea to Rika’s country of origin, Malta, now occupied by the Italian regime for the purposes of space exploration. He intends to spend two weeks in Malta to find the remains of Rika’s past. Twenty-three years later he is still there looking for clues about his own roots.

Many thanks to the National Book Council of Malta for awarding us this funding. Rokit was originally published by Merlin in 2017.

Photo credit: Sephora Gauci

23/08/2023

We’re delighted to announce the shortlist for this year’s Praspar Press Translation Prize…

💫 MJ Camilleri
💫 Daniela Cordina
💫 Daniel Cossai

The shortlist was selected by Aphroconfuso editors Loranne Vella & Joe Gatt. The winner, selected by Praspar Press in dialogue with Vella and Gatt, will be announced next week.

The winner’s translation of an excerpt from Qarn by Romeo Roxman Gatt will be published in Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 3 this October.

Congratulations to the shortlisted translators, and thank you to everyone that submitted.

13/08/2023

As recently as 2011, there were no women authors included in the Matsec Maltese Literature O Level. The latest steps to address this imbalance is the inclusion of 4 more women authors for the 2025 syllabus, raising the number from 2 women and 21 men to 6 women and 16 men. The new writers include our authors Loranne Vella and Clare Azzopardi and Scintillas 1 contributor Rita Saliba who join previously included author and Scintillas 2 contributor Maria Grech Ganado. Loranne Vella put forward more writers who could have been added, including Scintillas 2 contributor Nadia Mifsud, and suggested adding feminist and secular analysis to the exploration of canonical texts.

There are similar issues in the UK, where a report in March 2023 revealed that only 2% of GCSE English Literature students will read a woman writer.

As mentioned in the article, this lack of balance has a trickle down effect whereby women authors aren’t given as much exposure or prestige, and are viewed as less important. It’s also important to recognise - especially during Month - that two thirds of works published in translation are by men, which is also part of this lack of cultural, social and financial investment in the work and legacy of women writers.

How many female Maltese authors do you think are included in the 2023 syllabus? The answer is two, among the 21 males authors. Twelve years ago, no female authors were included in Matsec’s O’ level syllabus. This number has been upped to six female authors in the 2025 syllabus and although this ...

10/08/2023

Great news!

Old Bakery Street museum is scheduled to open its doors to the public in 2025

02/08/2023

Our translation prize closes this Friday!

THE PRASPAR PRESS TRANSLATION PRIZE 2023 – SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN We’re delighted to announce the second edition of the Praspar Press Translation...

01/08/2023

SUMMER / WOMEN IN TRANSLATION MONTH SALE ! 🌞

3 Book Bundle: £25 !

🟡 The Lives & Deaths of K. Penza by Clare Azzopardi tr. Albert Gatt
🟡 What will it take for me to leave by Loranne Vella tr. Kat Storace
🟡 Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 2

You can also get each book at a reduced price individually 🌞

Sale ends 1 September 🌞

https://www.praspar.com/products

For UK residents only 🌞

28/07/2023

Editing no. 3 ✨✨✨

14/07/2023

We’ve been craving to show you the cover and contributor list for Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 3 … and here it is! 🌞

The third iteration of our anthology features short fiction, poetry and essays written and translated by all these incredible contributors.

And you … ? Our translation prize is open for another 3 weeks, see our website for full details for the chance of having your translation of a text by Romeo Roxman Gatt published in Scintillas 3! https://www.praspar.com/submissions

Pre-orders will open in September and we’ll be launching the anthology at the Malta Book Festival in October!

Scintillas 2 is still available from our website and stockists, and we have an exciting event planned for Scintillas 2 TBA soon! https://www.praspar.com/product/scintillas-new-maltese-writing-2

🧂🍬

The anthology is kindly funded by the National Book Council of Malta.

12/07/2023

3 weeks left to submit to this year’s translation prize. Drop us an email to receive the submission information. And good luck!

THE PRASPAR PRESS TRANSLATION PRIZE 2023 – SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN We’re delighted to announce the second edition of the Praspar Press Translation...

06/07/2023

There’s less than a month left to submit to this year’s Praspar Press Translation Prize, which is in collaboration with the new Maltese online literary journal Aphroconfuso.

The Praspar Press Translation Prize is an annual competition for published and unpublished translators working from Maltese into English. Its aim is to help us discover and build a network of the best emerging translators working between these languages and to help them develop their practice.

Entrants are invited to submit their translation of a short piece of published writing of our choosing. This year’s extract is taken from Romeo Roxman Gatt’s work-in-progress, Qarn, published on Aphroconfuso.

The prize will be judged by Loranne Vella and Joe Gatt, publishers and editors of Aphroconfuso, and overseen by Kat Storace and Jen Calleja of Praspar Press.

The winning translation will be featured in the third edition of our anthology series – Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 3 – publishing in October 2023. The winning and shortlisted entrants will also be offered a translation workshop with Praspar Press editors and published literary translators Jen Calleja and Kat Storace.

To enter, please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line ‘Praspar Press Translation Prize 2023’. You’ll receive an email back with the selected extract and instructions for how to submit your entry.

Closing date: 4 August 2023

THE PRASPAR PRESS TRANSLATION PRIZE 2023 – SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN We’re delighted to announce the second edition of the Praspar Press Translation...

30/06/2023

We’re delighted to announce the second edition of the Praspar Press Translation Prize, in collaboration with the newly launched online literary journal in Malta, Aphroconfuso !

The Praspar Press Translation Prize is an annual competition for published and unpublished translators working from Maltese into English. Its aim is to help us discover and build a network of the best emerging translators working between these languages and to help them develop their practice.

Entrants are invited to submit their translation of a short piece of published writing of our choosing. This year’s extract is taken from Romeo Roxman Gatt’s work-in-progress, Qarn, published on Aphroconfuso.

The prize will be judged by Loranne Vella and Joe Gatt, publishers and editors of Aphroconfuso, and overseen by Kat Storace and Jen Calleja of Praspar Press.

The winning translation will be featured in the third edition of our anthology series – Scintillas: New Maltese Writing 3 – publishing in October 2023. The winning and shortlisted entrants will also be offered a translation workshop with Praspar Press editors and published literary translators Jen Calleja and Kat Storace.

To enter, please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line ‘Praspar Press Translation Prize 2023’. You’ll receive an email back with the selected extract and instructions for how to submit your entry.

Closing date: 4 August 2023

https://www.praspar.com/submissions

13/06/2023

We will be emailing everyone that submitted to our third anthology call out tonight ✨ ✨ ✨

31/05/2023

We’ve loved seeing & ’s pictures of reading The Lives and Deaths of K. Penza while in Malta! Jade also managed to spot some places that feature in the novel 🕵️‍♀️ Pick up a copy from one of our Maltese stockists

15/05/2023

Thrilled to see The Lives and Deaths of K. Penza by Clare Azzopardi translated by Albert Gatt featured in this Eurovision-inspired feature!

15/05/2023

Great to see Clare Azzopardi’s The Lives and Deaths of K. Penza tr. Albert Gatt featured in Eurovision-inspired book feature! 🐧

12/05/2023

The Praspar team is back together in person for the first time in 3 months! Making lots of exciting plans, discussing final selections for Scintillas 3, looking forward to announcing events for our latest books The Lives and Deaths of K. Penza and Scintillas 2, and scheduling future projects. Stay tuned!