It is not a question of being a writer or even to write. It just happens or you find yourself in that environment unintentionally. Behind it all, there’s the childhood imagination and fantasies. The idle moments when you’re on your desk surrounded with text books which you start to loath.(hate). Pencil in hand, you automatically start scribbling, drawing lines, whatever. A sort of magnetism attracts you towards other books and material which has nothing to do with the syllabus.
Generally, students are geared to study and obtain certificates. I was never a conformist and even in my closet I used to feel angry against routine established patterns. I always felt greedy to read, because through reading I could travel away; travel to where the author takes me and travel in my imagination.
This is what started me on this rough road. At first I used to write only poetry and a short story every now and then. Poetry was inspired due to my love for literature, but also from the volcanic eruption of songwriters during the 1960’s. The protest songs, the cry for liberation, flower-power, human rights, all these themes used to effect me a lot especially when as an island we were kept isolated by religious restrictions, censorship etc.
I’m not a full time writer, but I wish I was. Since 1975 I have managed to publish ten books. It’s true that there are three more in the pipeline, but still, I could have managed more if I had more time and if I was more disciplined. By this I do not want to deviate the argument, since after publishing my first novel in 1975 and a book of poetry eight years later, I was gripped by another
In this way I took off to sail the vast ocean of research. Suddenly the Biblioteca became my second home. The late 19 century and early 20th Century local newspapers became my daily reading. You have to work hard to recreate the past as it really was, as our ancestors lived it. I was hooked and gripped with the socio-political affairs and the historical changes of an island colony between 1880 and 1933. In fact, my first researched book Ma’ Sebħ is-Seklu based on the life and times of Guliermo Arena editor of one of the first Maltese newspapers Il-Ħmar, was published in 1990.
When you are researching you get to know other occurrences, other people who you believe should have been given more credit. So you keep on sailing and traveling across the waves. Then suddenly you find that you have enough material to finish your project, and this led me to the release of two new books in 1999 and 2000. The first one was and still is one of my favorite piece of works, Is-Sedizzjoni in which I treated the sedition case of 1933. In the meantime, I was collecting all the relevant information about the Maltese Labour Party MPs and activists since 1921 which I published a year later. Prior to these two publications I managed to re-read and publish an autobiographical novel about my experience in the Sahara desert, titled Erba’ Snin.
It is pleasant and entertaining to write, but it is also very painful. It is even more painful to be as accurate as possible and loyal towards history and the readers by presenting the all the relevant references and documentation. One must remember that a lot of documents have been lost during the World War II. Items of news value were mostly limited to what was happening in Valletta
At times you might feel dry and writing a poem or two a month is not enough. Writing only poetry did not seem to give me the ultimate satisfaction. During these tough periods you gradually realize that writing became part of you. And to write one has to read a lot. So you get worried when you don’t write. It’s not when you do not write for a day or two. It’s that desperate long dragging period of a week or two! It only happened to me once, and I found the right therapy in translating. In that miserable experience I almost finished translating Rousseau’s The Social Contract. Today I have to admit that I’d rather not finish the final fifteen pages!
In mid-1987 I committed myself to another undertaking. Approached by the then editor of a the Sunday newspaper it-Torċa, I was invited to cradle the weekly literary page. Since then I honored this commitment on regular basis, dedicating many hours on reviewing local publications, encouraging young writers and presenting their works, while at times providing the readers with different point of views about the local literary scenario.
During the last decade research kept me on tiptoes almost daily. I started to read the interesting and never stale writings of Juan Mamo. Then I went deeper and managed to find many more of his works in the local newspapers. So, in 2007 I published the book Juan Mamo: Ħajtu u Ħilietu, in which I presented unpublished writing provided by his daughter.
One thing I never believed to go through happened early in 2003 when a very close friend of mine, and president of a local band club, begged me to write their 125 year history. It took me over a month to decide, and I only said yes after consulting some of their early documents and provided that I was free to weave their history together with the village and national social, religious and political history. This book, Ħal Luqa u l-Banda tagħha l-Unjoni was published in 2005.
I never thought that this experience will lead or force me to spend some five more years researching the history of the local philharmonic societies of our islands. But it had to be this way, and with great efforts and dedications I managed to finish two more books dedicated to philharmonic societies. Both will hopefully be published before the end of this year.
I never asked myself how I write, but why I write. There is always something building up in my mind. One of the worst feelings is that when you materialize your thought, at times, they do not have the same impact as when they were being brewed in your mind. I write because I feel that I have to and, that I have something to write about. But, the way I write is hopefully the how and what the readers enjoy between the covers of the book.
