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On the occasion of the translation of the novel into Maltese, under the patronage of the Istituto italiano di cultura, the Società Dante Alighieri comitato di Malta will host the presentation of Irene Chias’ book Esercizi di sevizia e seduzione. The presentation will be held in Italian in Valletta (Old Bakery Street 134, Valletta), on May 5, at 6.30 pm. Translator Mark Vella and moderator Maria Grazia Strano will talk with the author, Irene Chias.

Published by Mondadori in 2013, the book anticipated the #metoo movement and won the Mondello prize in 2014. Additionally, by reversing roles in the narrative of gender-based violence, the novel's protagonist highlights a crucial knot of our culture: how sexual violence against women is ultimately accepted as something “natural”

 Particularly appropriate therefore seems to be the title of the Maltese translation Mur Ġibek…, which can be translated as “Put yourself…” which implies “in my shoes”. The inversion proposed by the author aims in fact to underline those paradoxes now invisible to the eyes of an addicted society: fighting against the stereotypes that harness women (and men), the protagonist revisits the scenes rape of literary classics, ranging from the Bible to American Psycho, reverses the gender of the characters and practices a symbolic reversal on selected men to pay the price for their self-indulgent chauvinism.