Gozo – the doting biography

Gozo, a portrait of an island  by Daniel Cilia and Iggy Fenech published by Gozo Regional Council, 2020 Giovanni Bonello If you know of any book on these islands more visually stunning than this, please let me know. I don’t. This one is an almost aggressive extravaganza of colour, the fairyland where chronicle and aesthetics coincide, a tsunami of nostalgia. Daniel Cilia, perhaps the most prolific and creative among a rich series of creative and prolific camera artists, has dredged his seemingly inexhaustible archives of images to put together, in one cohesive narrative, the most memorable pictorial accounts of Gozo’s geography, history, folklore, passions, a destiny past and an awareness present. The portrait of an island, sure, but, perhaps more importantly, a guidebook into being Gozitan. The visual element overwhelms by far the printed word.