A string of academics and authors appeared in the Magistrates’ Court yesterday to give their opinion on a literary piece deemed obscene and pornographic by the police.
The very fact it was so explicit meant the author’s intention was not to be pornographic or to titillate. It was not even erotic because it left nothing to the imagination. Rather, he wanted to convey a message, the protagonist in the story should “fix what he had broken”, as the title states, Kenneth Wain testified.
Among other witnesses in the case instituted by the police against author Alex Vella Gera were former politician and author Lino Spiteri, linguistics expert Albert Gatt, anthropologist and commentator Ranier Fsadni, author Maria Grech Ganado, Maltese literature lecturer Adrian Grima and stage director and actor Toni Attard.
Mr Vella Gera stands charged with breaching article 208 of the Criminal Code dealing with the distribution of pornographic or obscene material, which could lead to a prison sentence of up to six months or a fine of up to €465.87 if found guilty.
His contentious story, entitled Li Tkisser Sewwi, written in 1997, deals with the male narrator’s sexual exploits. Written in explicit language, it describes in detail the man’s sexual encounters with various women. According to the author, the story had already been published on a blog about five years ago before appearing on the University newspaper Realtà last year.
Prof. Wain said he could remember the time when, in England, the book Lady Chatterley’s Lover had caused controversy with its explicit scenes.
He was familiar with this type of explicit writing when, in his philosopy studies, he had come in contact with French authors who used such writing to pass on a political message. He said there was a big difference between actual pornographic writing and the type used by Mr Vella Gera because Mr Vella Gera’s intention was clear in the piece. It didn’t even qualify as erotic writing because its explicitness did not leave any space for the imagination. It could be described as excessive realism, Prof. Wain said.
Dr Grima, a Maltese literature lecturer, said a piece such as the one in question forced us to look at ourselves and he doubted whether an English author who wrote in the same way would have caused so much controversy if the piece had appeared in Malta. He then asked: “Why don’t we want to speak about ourselves?”
He said that, although the piece did provoke disgust, no one could deny that people just like the protagonist existed in Malta. Moreover, it was useful for this type of writing to be available to University students for them to dissect and form an opinion.
Mr Gatt, a linguist who lectures at the University of Malta, said the piece reflected reality while the words used, although functional as words, had emotional connotations that reflected the culture out of which they were born.
Mr Fsadni said the author was commenting about the protagonist in the story, as evident in the title where the author was telling him to fix what he had broken and was keeping a distance from the story.
When questioned whether it was useful for Maltese society to be exposed to this material, he said that, although he viewed the literary piece as a failure, he viewed the failure as essential to progress.
All the witnesses defended freedom of speech when questioned by defence lawyers Phillip Manduca and Raphael Fenech Adami after they were asked whether censoring this type of writing would have a detrimental effect on Maltese society.
Mr Spiteri said if one stopped well-meaning authors from writing this way then one would be impinging on freedom of expression, adding it was only recently he had found out one of his books had been banned from schools.
Mr Attard said Malta formed part of the Council of Europe, which celebrated freedom of expression. Unless the Maltese wanted to become like Tunisia or Egypt, that had very creative underground artists, they should not ban this type of work.
Magistrate Audrey Demicoli is expected to hand down judgment in March.