Klabb Kotba Maltin has just launched a book by Oliver Friggieri, Hekk Tħabbat il-Qalb Maltija, a trilogy made up of the three bestselling novels It-Tfal Jiġu bil-Vapuri, La Jibbnazza Niġi Lura, and Dik id-Dgħajsa f’Nofs il-Port.
The trilogy tries to convey a message to youths who are in search of stability through love and personal relations
The trilogy, on which the teleserial It-Tfal Jiġu bil-Vapuri was based, is written so that the novels form one whole narrative.
It depicts in detail life in Malta in the early decades of the 20th century, and is set in a remote village and the Grand Harbour, a centre of activity day and night.
The triple novel seeks to reconstruct life as a British colony, and to portray conflicts which occurred within the family, the village and the harbour area where contact with the foreign world was very important.
Within this context the story of Susanna evolves, involving a number of people.
It-Tfal Jigu bil-Vapuri, La Jibbnazza Niġi lura and Dik id-Dgħajsa f’Nofs il-Port, now published as one volume, can all be read on their own.
Each novel is autonomous from the other two, but is written in such a manner as to be part ofa trilogy.
The story evolves around a family which experiences the birth of a child out of wedlock.
Social and religious conflicts give rise to a series of events, the main victim of which is Dun Grejbel, a saintly priest who is grossly misunderstood both by the community and the Church authority.
He pays a very high price for this. Susanna, the young unmarried mother, goes through a lot of suffering, but her mother, the supreme grandmother, the moral leader of the extended family, manages to put things in order.
While the first two novels deal extensively with the older generation, Dik id-Dghajsa f’Nofs il-Port delves mainly in the way Wistin, the son of Susanna, nowa youth, is searching for hisown roots.
He is trying to form for himself an image of both his father, Stiefnu, so remote from him as he earns his living in the Grand Harbour as a bambott (a reference to a boat carrying provisions to the ships in port), and his mother Susanna, totally faithful to her own mother Katarina, the epitome of tradition and continuity.
Most of this work seeks to depict the conflict between tradition and modernism in contem-porary Malta.
Prof.Friggieri comments on this trilogy: ‘‘I have tried to depict the past in order to better understand what is happening now to the family.
“The novel is all about the family structure, here and now, and basically concerns the role of the mother and the grandmother.
“My novels have convinced me that the best way to discover the present is to unearth the mysteries of the past.
“A lot of nostalgia creeps in, but it is all nostalgia about the present and the future.
“This trilogy tries to convey a message to youths who are in search of stability through love and personal relations. They will here realise that the present challenges facing them are more complex than those of decades ago, and that love is the most important value. It means it has got a very high price. It has to be earned. No easy job at all!”
Prof. Friggieri, lecturer of literature at the University, is the author of numerous books, more than 50 of which have been published in foreign countries.
“His novels and short stories have been translated into numerous languages. He writes in Maltese, English and Italian.
Hekk Tħabbat il-Qalb Maltija is published as a special edition of the Klabb Kotba Maltin series.
The volume, comprising more than 700 pages, is elegantly printed by Gutenberg Press in hardbound format and is on sale at Klabb Kotba Maltin in Santa Venera and all leading booksellers in Malta and Gozo.