Osama’s letter and other stories

John P. Portelli: L-Ittra ta’ Osama u Stejjer Oħra(Osama’s Letter and Other Stories) Published by Horizons L-Ittra ta’ Osama u Stejjer Oħra (Osama’s Letter and Other Stories) is made up of 14 fiction stories, told in one story ‒ that of disjunctures and crossroads. The stories are carefully constructed to evoke visualisations that involve perspectives through the gaze of multiple social, political and cultural lenses. Each story is told from a different perspective, but the narratives are linked, as though they trespass the same terrain which converges with the author’s life. There is the feel of I-was-there in the scenes depicted. Readers are made to see into contexts the stories tell through the eyes of an immigrant, an academic, a friend, and someone who straddles worlds and cultures. [attach id=876293 size="medium" align="right" type="image"][/attach] The stories take place in various countries and demarcate different worlds. The opening story, L-Appartament (The Apartment), recounts the migratory transition that Mark, a Maltese man, went through when he attempted to settle in Canada. He was relieved to escape the suffocating, judgemental attitude prevalent in his native...