di Arnold Cassola [*]
Italian 19th century immigration to Malta was intimately connected with the steady spread of culture amongst the Maltese, especially through the ever-expanding medium of journalism. En passant, one of these newspapers, L’Emigrazione Maltese (1867-1877) which was edited by Amabile Bonello, had the specific aim of organizing Maltese migration to the North African coast, especially to Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. Another newspaper, Afrique Maltaise (1889-1890), edited by Enrico Zammit, voiced the general interests of the Maltese settlers in Algeria, Tunisia and Tripolitania. Even Maltese emigrants abroad were to be quite involved in the journalistic sphere. For example, Sapienza (1977) lists no less than eleven newspapers published in Egypt and Tunisia by Maltese immigrants prior to 1940. These are:
Egittu; giurnal Malti-Egizjan (Cairo, 1897), Standard tal-Maltin; Ecu ta’ l’Orient (Cairo, 1921), Il Vuci tal Malti Egizian (Cairo, 1923), Il Qari Malti (Port Said, 1928), Bullettin tal-Komunità Maltija tal-Kajr (Cairo, 1938) and Il Currier Malti (Tunis,1912-13), Melita: Gazzetta Letteraria u ta Ahbarijiet (Tunis, 1915), Friend – Il Habib ta’ Tunes (Tunis, 1916), Simpaticuni (Tunis, early 20th Century), Weekly Melita (Tunis, 1916), Melita: Organe Maltais d’Informations (Sousse, 1937). Brondino (1998) adds L’ape maltese (Tunis, 1884) to the list.
Documentazione di migranti maltesi in Tunisia pubblicati nel “The Malta Indipendent, 31 agosto 2024 da Katel Delia e Marie Benoit
The scenario in the post-war period has witnessed the presence of quite a number of writers in the Maltese language operating amongst the Maltese migrant communities in English speaking countries. Australia has been particularly fertile in this respect. Lawrence Attard mentions eleven authors of Maltese origin, namely: Joseph Abela, Baldass Armato, Rigu Bovingdon, Manwel Cassar, Maurice Cauchi, George Chetcuti, Joseph Chetcuti, Albert Marshall, Rosanne Musu, Manwel Nicholas-Borg and Joe Saliba. He adds «It must be emphasised that a large number of other writers have missed out on being included in this bibliography. In fact, a recent anthology of prose and poetry from the Maltese Literature Group includes 20 additional authors not previously included in the bibliographies mentioned above» (Maltese Literature Group, 1986, 1992).
Maurice Cauchi has also identified a number of women writers of Maltese origin in Australia. These include Lou Drofenik, Georgina Scillio, Rosanne Dingli, Anna Maria Weldon, Monica Attard, Juliet M. Sampson, Carmel Mary Baretta and Pauline Curmi.
Therefore, one could safely conclude that migration to and from Malta during the 19th and 20th centuries was a lively and interactive affair: with the locals affording hospitality to their foreign guests, whilst gaining in return a strong intellectual and political enrichment.
The 21st century
This century, following Malta’s membership of the European Union in 2004, has brought about a very interesting phenomenon: the birth of a new young generation of Maltese writers, whose literary formation has been strongly influenced by their condition of living abroad, in particular working within the institutions of the EU.
Alex Vella Gera (1973), a translator based in Brussels, is the author of various novels, amongst which Is-Sriep Reġgħu Saru Velenużi [‘The snakes have become venomous again’] (2012) and Trojan (2015). The first novel is a thriller based on a failed assassination plot to kill the former controversial Prime Minister of Malta, Dom Mintoff, whilst the second, winner of the 2016 Malta Book Prize, explores the relationship between the tangible present and the intangible world that transcends it. Vella Gera is probably the first exponent of this nouvelle generation litteraire maltaise to rock the Maltese contemporary literary scene.
Pierre Mejlak (1982) has been Chief of Media Relations at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC since 2022, following three years at the World Bank Group. Before that he spent fourteen years working in the European Institutions in Brussels. This prolific writer of short stories and novels started writing at a very young age in the second island of the Maltese archipelago, Gozo, where he was born. In the short space of over forty years since his birth, Mejlak has moved from peripheral Gozo to mainland Malta, followed by the centre of Europe, Brussels, and now to the centre of world politics, Washington, D.C. Such life experience has proved of inspiration for his many books for children, a novel and two collections of short stories, including Qed Nistennik Nieżla max-Xita [‘Waiting for you to fall with the rain’] (2009) and Dak li l-lejl Iħallik Tgħid [available in English as ‘Having Said Goodnight’] (2015), which have won him the European Union Prize for Literature, five Malta National Book awards and the Sea of Words European Short Story Award. His works have been translated into over fifteen languages.
Karl Schembri (1978-) started off as a journalist in his native country Malta. He has authored various short stories and poems. After having published in 2002 his collection of short stories entitled Taħt il-Kappa tax-Xemx [‘Under the Sun’), he asserted himself as an innovative ‘anarchic’ voice, which really stood out in the contemporary literary panorama, with his novel entitled Il-Manifest tal-Killer [‘The Killer’s manifest’], published in 2006. This novel was strongly influenced by Schembri’s journalistic activity, which had brought him into contact with the wheeling and dealing, hypocrisy and sleaze revolving around the Maltese political world.
Since 2009, Schembri has been working, as a journalist first and a media officer later, in conflict areas around the world, which include Palestine, Jordan, Kenya. His hands-on, close experience with suffering refugees has certainly brought about a re-focusing of Schembri’s interests onto the macro-issues of this world, which have inspired his most recent works It- tifel li salva d-dinja [‘The boy who saved the world’] (2020), The Lulu Diaries (2020), The Journey of Miskit, The Brave Stoat (2023), a book meant for child refugees and Eħlisna mid-deni [’Deliver usfrom Evil’] (2025).
Antoine Cassar (1978) defines himself as a «London-born Maltese poet, translator, and editor, with roots in activism for universal freedom of movement and other causes. I write in Maltese and English, mostly about maps and borders, cities and language, walking and mental health». A nomad himself, always travelling between Britain, Malta, Luxembourg and Greece, Cassar specialises in long poems which highlight the many woes of life.
Passaport [‘Passport’] (2009) is a long poem written in protest against all the red tape, bureaucracy, harassment, intolerance and prejudices that travellers, nomads and, in particular, suffering refugees have to face and endure when trying to cross borders and frontiers, useless barriers between human beings, artificially created by humankind. On the other hand, Erbgħin Jum [‘Forty Days’] (2017) is an autobiographic long poem that reflects on childhood trauma, and domestic violence. Cassar finds an antidote to all this in walking. Cassar won the National Book Prize in 2018.
Nadia Mifsud (1976) has been living since 1998 in France, where she works as a teacher and translator, and from where she derives the inspiration for her poetry and prose writings. She published her first collection of poems, Żugraga [‘Spinning Top’] in 2009, followed by Kantuniera ’l Bogħod [‘Around the Bend’] (2015), Varjazzjonijiet ta’ Skiet [‘Variations of Silence’] (2021) and Meta Tinfetaq il-Folla [‘When the Crowd comes undone’] (2022). Her prose writings include Ir-rota daret dawra (kważi) sħiħa [‘Going (almost) full circle’] (2017) and Żifna f’xifer irdum [‘Dancing on the Cliff Edge’] (2021).
In her works she explores fundamental themes in life, such as womanhood and motherhood, the relationship between eroticism, love and the end of love, as well as the role that absence, void, silence, migration, emptiness and death play in our lives. Mifsud is involved in the Translation Workshop held yearly in Malta in conjunction with the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival. She was awarded the National Book Prize for poetry in 2016 and 2022. In 2022 she also became Malta’s third Poet Laureate.
Elizabeth Grech (1978) is another Maltese translator based in France since 2002. She has translated the works of many Maltese authors into French, whilst collaborating with various social scientists and a number of NGOs. She is also a consultant with CIHEAM (International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies).
The title of her collection of poems, Bejn Baħar u Baħar [‘Between two Seas’] (2019), testifies to the importance of the Mediterranean Sea in the life of a Maltese woman transplanted in Paris. As Grech herself stated, the sea is a «symbol of openness, a horizon of open possibilities, a link withother worlds [where I can] drown my pains and nourish my body and soul».
Loranne Vella (1972) has been a translator in Brussels since 2005. Her background is in Theatre studies and the performing arts. Her Fiddien trilogy (Sqaq l-Infern [‘The Hellish Alley’] (2007), Wied Wirdien [‘The Cockroach Valley’] (2008), Il-Ġnien tad-Dmugħ [‘The Garden of Tears’] (2009), written together with Simon Bartolo, are a prime example of fantasy fiction meant for adolescents. Her experimentation into the mythological world of dystopian fiction continued with Magna Mater (2011) and the award winning Rokit [‘Rocket’] (2017), which opens up to a wider readership, since it delves into tangible reality, though dealt with always in dystopian mode. In Vella’s own words, «Climate change is both the backdrop of this story as well as the driving force of the plot -things which would have happened very differently had there been no tsunamis and heavy rains ravaging this little island in the middle of the Mediterranean in 2064».
Other works by Vella include the collection of short stories mill-bieb ’il ġewwa [‘behind closed doors’] (2019), the lyrics to the musical Il-Ħanina Maddalena [‘The Pious Magdalene’] (2018) (music Dominic Galea), the children storybook Smajna Isimna Taħt l-Art [‘We heard our names Underground’] (2019) and her novel Marta Marta (2022), winner of the National Book Prize.
Mark Vella (1974) has been working for the European Institutions since 2003. Following a period based in Luxembourg as a translator, he is at the moment Head of Communication and Outreach at the European Commission Representation in Malta. Apart from a couple of short stories which he has published in literary journals, he has published the novel X’ Ġralu lil Kevin Cacciattolo? [‘What could have happened to Kevin Cacciattolo?’;] (2014), which explores, in an enigmatic way, the enigmatic story of the enigmatic protagonist, Cacciattolo.
My concluding reflection is that Diversity must not be seen as a threat to our existence. On the contrary, the cross fertilisation of different cultures is to be considered a source of enrichment and fulfilment to one and all.
The Mediterranean region is teeming with myriads of cultural ferments. Until recently, we seem to have been taken up by the mania of trying to annihilate cultures other than ours.
One must now turn the page over completely: we should certainly try to safeguard and treasure what has been traditionally ours for centuries but we should also try to recuperate the patrimony of others and learn how to give and take, in the process. That is what foreign exiles in Malta have done in the 19th century and that is what the contemporary Maltese diaspora is doing today abroad.
Migrants, and even more so migrant writers, are the living depositaries of hundreds of centuries of cultural heritage and we should therefore all ensure that their heritage is also respected, safeguarded and treasured, whether it is foreigners coming to Malta or Maltese expatriating to other countries. The key word in this whole process is harmonization. Therefore, not the assimilation of one culture by another but the blending of one into the other.
It is only the day that this happens that we can really start seeing the European Union motto of United in Diversity become a concrete reality.
Dialoghi Mediterranei, n. 77, gennaio 2026
[*] Abstract
Nell’ ‘800 l’isola di Malta è stata rifugio sicuro per centinaia di intellettuali italiani esuli, che scappavano dalla penisola vicina dopo i falliti tentativi rivoluzionari del 1821 e 1848. Questo articolo tratta di alcuni dei giovani scrittori maltesi che, dopo l’adesione di Malta all’Unione Europea nel 2004, hanno trovato lavoro all’estero, in particolare nell’Unione Europea, ma anche negli Stati Uniti, luoghi che non hanno fatto dimenticare le loro origini isolane mediterranee. La formazione giovanile a Malta diventa protagonista dei loro lavori, insieme alle problematiche comuni che devono affrontare tutti i giovani in un mondo globalizzato.
References
Brondino, Michele, 1998. La Stampa Italiana in Tunisia. Storia E Società (1838-1956). Milano: Edizioni Universitarie Jaca.
Sapienza, Anthony, F., 1977. A Checklist of Maltese Periodicals. Malta: University of Malta Press.
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Arnold Cassola, accademico e politico, ha insegnato nelle Università di Catania (1981-83) e Roma La Sapienza (1983-88). Dal 1988 insegna Letteratura Maltese comparata presso l’Università di Malta, dove ricopre il ruolo di Professore Ordinario. Si interessa di migrazione maltese in Sicilia e in Tunisia, Relazioni culturali italo-maltesi, Storia della Lingua Maltese, Letteratura maltese comparata, e Studi Maltesi in generale. È autore di numerose pubblicazioni. Come politico, Cassola, che ha la doppia cittadinanza malto-italiana, è stato eletto due volte Segretario Generale a Bruxelles del Partito Verde Europeo (1999-2006), e parlamentare alla Camera dei Deputati di Montecitorio (2006-2008), come Italiano all’Estero.
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