Praspar Press

06/03/2024

We’re delighted to announce that Kat Storace’s translation of a long excerpt from Loranne Vella’s novel Marta Marta has been selected for publication in The White Review’s Writing in Translation anthology! The anthology is described as housing “some of the most innovative and exciting writers working today.”

There will be a launch event in April at TANK in London. Visit The White Review’s page for further info.

Loranne Vella was awarded the National Book Prize of Malta for her novels Marta Marta and Rokit, and was shortlisted for her short story collection ‘Mill-bieb ‘il ġewwa.’

Kat Storace was just awarded a PEN Translates Award in support of her translation of Rokit, which we’ll be publishing next year. Storace was also shortlisted for the Society of Authors TA First Translation Prize for her translation of Vella’s short story collection, published by us as ‘what will it take for me to leave’ in 2021. Storace is co-publisher at Praspar Press.

02/02/2024

📣BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT📣 We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be publishing Daniel Vella’s debut novel in spring 2025.

We started our anthology series Scintillas partly in the hope that we would discover a writer who we could work with for their first book. After publishing Daniel’s work in our first two anthologies, we were very keen to work with him on a larger project, and we’re so pleased that Daniel has produced a mesmerising, genre-bending work that blends fiction, psycho-geography, cultural memory and post-colonial history through the site and orbit of a fictional Maltese village. The novel (title TBA) will be our first work originally written in English.
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In a series of interconnected stories and essayistic interludes that intertwine, spin off in unexpected directions and meet again to echo, reflect and comment upon each other, a fictional Maltese village emerges: Ħal Minsi, a place lost and found, a half-remembered memory, an ephemeral presence vanishing and re-appearing in the folds of the country as it changes beyond recognition over the course of the last hundred years. A broad cast of characters move through and between these stories: housewives, artists, migrants, returned expats, petty criminals, daydreaming schoolchildren, lost teenagers, priests, politicians and real estate magnates, those who are drawn to Ħal Minsi, those who find there an answer to a question they never knew they carried within themselves, those who long to return but cannot, and those who do the unthinkable out of their desperation to leave for good.

Daniel Vella is a writer and academic at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta. He has previously worked as a freelance cultural journalist with the Times of Malta and as a scriptwriter for daily children’s show Iż-Żona. He is a narrative designer for board games with Mighty Boards, and his narrative design work for board games includes Posthuman Saga (2019) and the upcoming Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan (2024), which is being translated into six languages. He is the co-author of Virtual Existentialism: Meaning and Subjectivity in Virtual Worlds (Palgrave, 2020). This is his first novel.

29/01/2024

We love Scintillas: New Maltese Writing so much - it’s brought writers and translators to new readers and us a lot of joy. We’re incredibly proud of Scintillas 1, 2 and 3 in equal measure. As for the next edition of Scintillas, we have decided to not produce an anthology this year. Though the anthology series has been wildly successful, it’s a lot of work and as we have TWO fantastic (and big!) books coming out next year we’ve decided to pause the anthology to focus on these titles (one of which Kat is also translating!). We hope to bring Scintillas back next year. In the meantime, do continue picking up Scintillas 2 and the newest in the series, Scintillas 3 from us and our stockists - and writing, of course. More info on our forthcoming books coming soon! 💛🩷 https://www.praspar.com/products

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.