Casting away

I've been having a discussion with Giuseppe today. He's finally read The Scent of Cinnamon because a translator friend, Isabella Zani, has rendered it - superbly - into Italian. After over 22 years together (tié Ratzy!), this is the first time he's really read anything of mine and, to my relief, he loves it. In fact, he loves it so much he wants to see it filmed. In fact, he wants to see it filmed so much he's already decided on the director and the actors for the two main roles. 

His choices? Ang Lee (director), Tilda Swinton (Miriam), Daniel Day Lewis (Joseph). Needless to say, these three jobbing labourers in the world of cinema are twiddling their thumbs in shabby bedrooms and waiting for my call. But I'm not sure they're the ones I want. Giuseppe says I should ask you. So that's what I'm doing. If you've read the story and think you have a better idea, let us know.  

Giuseppe Mallia

If you'd like to see more of Giuseppe's work, and you'd have to be mad not to, click here.

Giuseppe Mallia: Fichi d'India

This is hanging in the kitchen, by the fridge. The paint extends beyond the board onto the frame, reinforcing the immediacy of the picture and giving it an iconic authenticity, as though its meaning could not quite be contained. It's fields of colour, naturalistic in only the most rudimentary way, a quote from Giuseppe's childhood. It could almost be used to illustrate the letter C for Cactus in a primer.

Monkey business

This is the small gold monkey I gave Giuseppe for his 50th birthday. He doesn't normally wear gold - he prefers silver - but the monkey comes from the same people (Pomellato) as a similarly minute camel (they're more or less the size of a thumbnail), given to me by Giuseppe some years ago. Animal symbolism is problematic at the best of times, but Giuseppe does have a mischievous streak and you already know about my camel thing. The alternative was a flamingo because he paints flamingoes, but I love the way the monkey genuinely hangs from the ring, just the way a monkey would.

Pomellato does a whole series of small gold animals in a range they call their Dodo collection; you can just see the silhouette of a dodo on the monkey's chest. Part of the cost is donated to WWF, so they're not just pretty, but marginally useful. Well, maybe.

If you believe that the soul weighs 21 grams (and, of course, I don't, but still), it would take seven monkeys like this to make a soul.

Giuseppe Mallia: Arum lilies

Something for the eye. It hangs in our living room, over a roughly-made probably Yugoslavian pale blue cupboard with very grand fluted columns on each side, and is partially concealed by bottles, an unused oil lamp we bought in Thessaloniki and a sculpture given to me on my 50th birthday by Daniela, made from a telephone directory, silver paint, two small cherubs and a piece of crimson cord.

I love it.