'Our first weeks living in Malta were a shock. We arrived in high summer in 1970 and, from the air, the island looked like a patch of charred earth - not what we imagined a Mediterranean island to be. As Malta is only 60 miles from Libya, it felt as if we'd landed in North Africa. Everything was an assault on the senses. It was a totally new experience for me, but a time when I could think and absorb this new world. I breathed in what Lawrence Durrell...