An American author in Malta

“I came, I saw, I panicked”. These are the first words which greet the reader upon opening Ilene Springer’s The Diary of an American Expatriate. The next page contains a ‘disclaimer “This is not a work of fiction. This is a story of the truth. And if you recognise yourself in one of the individuals portrayed here, too bad. You should have thought about this before you were such a barbarian to me. I told you I was a writer.” The book, published last October, tells the true story of the challenges faced by an American woman living with a British-German partner in Malta. When she found she could no longer keep up with her American health insurance bill, Ms Springer decided to leave her motherland in 2008 at the age of 55 and start a new life in Malta. Ms Springer’s confessions warn anyone who has ever thought of starting over somewhere new the raw truths which await them – coloured by the author’s light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek and downright laugh-out-loud style. Her book, which is the first of three instalments, also serves as an eye-opener of sorts – little details which many Maltese take for granted are presented in a different perspective. But surely a certain amount of artistic...