Maltese author Immanuel Mifsud has just been honoured with the European Prize for Literature 2011 for his autobiographical narrative Fl-Isem tal-Missier (u tal-Iben) [In the Name of the Father (and of the Son)].

Published last year by Klabb Kotba Maltin, Fl-Isem tal-Missier (u tal-Iben) was inspired by the discovery of a long lost diary kept by the author’s then 19-year-old father, beginning on the eve of WWII.

Fl-Isem tal-Missier (u tal-Iben) is more than just a short biography of Mr Mifsud’s father. It gives an account of the troubled relationship between father and son, depicting a typically Freudian Oedipal struggle which loads the author, as a child, with a deep sense of guilt, hurt and admiration. Through an emotionally charged narration, the book then presents the author himself in a fatherly role, exposing a doubting adult who is not sure he can live up to the expectations surrounding a father figure.

The book may well be regarded as Mr Mifsud’s contemplation on masculinity in a time when studies are insisting that masculinity is in crisis. As academic Albert Gatt notes, Mr Mifsud’s style resists letting this book be pigeonholed for it is neither a memoir nor history nor autobiography and yet it has the characteristics of these genres.

Shifting from narrative to poetry to academic analysis with references to scholars like Susan Bordo, Helene Cixous and Julia Kristeva, Fl-Isem tal-Missier (u tal-Iben) is a combination of styles, moods and literary techniques, making it a first in Maltese literature.

The European Prize for Literature 2011 is financed by the Culture Programme of the EU and aims at promoting the circulation of European contemporary fiction and to promote cross-border mobility of cultural endeavours and thus foster intercultural dialogue.

• The award was announced in Frankfurt last month and will be presented in Brussels on November 28. For more information visit www.euprizeliterature.eu/