Statement by Dar Camilleri
With reference to the ongoing debacle published by The Times of Malta about the design of Malta’s promotional material at the London Book Fair, Dar Camilleri would like to stress that the representation being projected by the National Book Council at the London Book Fair is not representative of Malta’s book industry.
Dar Camilleri would also like to add that Malta’s stand at the London Book Fair does not promote and include all of Malta’s publishers and particularly excludes Dar Camilleri itself.
Dar Camilleri is one of the only very few handful of publishers in the world that is currently exporting Maltese literature, particularly in London and its book shops. Malta’s aim to participate at the London Book Fair is supposedly to help publishers like ourselves to promote and export Maltese books and literature.
Despite hundreds of thousands of Euros that are being spent every single year on London Book Fair by the National Book Council, we have yet never seen any of this help. At the same time, the National Book Council has released tens of thousands of Euros in direct financing, resources and services to our direct competitors in London.
We would also like to highlight the discriminatory nature of the current Chairman of the National Book Council, which he himself has acknowledged.
Unfortunately, despite being the original founder of Malta’s participation of at the London Book Fair, and being one of the very few publishers exporting Maltese books, I myself, won’t be attending this year’s London Book Fair for the first time since 2014, due to ongoing financial constraints related to The Maltese Herald. Currently, I have ongoing court cases against the National Book Council which would potentially shed more light on the current discriminatory situation.
Mark Camilleri
Dar Camilleri
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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