QUEER MEDITERRANEAN MEMORIES - Penetrating the secret history and disguise of gay men and lesbians in the Maltese archipelago was recently released in Australia. The book, by barrister and solicitor Joseph Carmel Chetcuti, has an introduction by Graham Willett, a leading gay historian in Australia, and an excerpt by John Shelby Spong, Anglican bishop emeritus of Newark (USA) and a champion of an all-inclusive Christianity.
 
 
QUEER MEDITERRANEAN MEMORIES has chapters on how laws in Malta affect gay men and lesbians, the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Malta including the Church’s reaction to it, beats, bars, the private privates, the “Wembley Store Boys”, the homosexual subcultures around Strait Street and Balzunetta, prominent and not-so-prominent Maltese and foreign gay men and lesbians, Maltese gay speech, Maltese “gay and lesbian” literature and the history of the gay rights movement in Malta. The book presents gay and lesbian reality in all its beauty and crude reality. It is compulsory reading for anyone interested in Maltese gay and lesbian history. The book is all about us and those who came before us. To date, it is the only book of its kind to have been written.
 
 
Joseph Carmel Chetcuti has been active in Australia’s gay and lesbian movement since 1973 and was one of the protestors at Sydney’s first Mardi Gras in 1978. He is expected to be in Malta early next year. He has already been invited to appear on TV programs to discuss the book. Further information on the book is available on www.queermalta.com. The site includes a recording of Doug Pollard’s interview with the author on Joy FM, Australia’s only gay and lesbian radio station.
 

 
The cost of the book is Eur 40.00 and can be bought by contacting the Malta Gay Rights Movement. By purchasing the book, you will also be helping MGRM as the author will be donating a percentage of the sales to help MGRM continue in its mission of achieving LGBT equality in Malta.
 
 
The book is A4 size with 280 pages and 130 photographs. One photograph believed to be over 100 years old shows two men holding hands. There are others photographs dating back to the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.