Ħsiebu Jsuqu depicts the writer's thoughts that lead him into humanity's conscience. In fact, the sub-title of the book refers to the literary actuality that Oliver Friggieri is maintaining and sustaining humanity with his writing. The book, Ħsiebu Jsuqu, tries to create a literary and human profile of Friggieri who is Professor of Maltese Literature at the University of Malta. He is also the foremost Maltese literary critic and a national author. He has published extensively and in his creative writing he attempts to interpret the sentiments and attitudes of a people living in the Central Mediterranean.

An exponent of the new wave of Maltese Literature of the 1960s, Friggieri is an author who has dominated the second half of the 20th century and has entered the new millennium with great literary confidence. Ħsiebu Jsuqu captures Friggieri's feelings, thoughts, and mind style from his writings. It projects a compact, coherent image of him as a relevant contemporary national author: that is, it embodies an image of some of the works most characteristic of him to show what constitutes the relevant literary output of Friggieri in a modern environment.

His poetry, short stories and novels have been translated into 16 languages. On the international scene, his poetry was included in some of the major poetry recitals held throughout Europe and on the local scene, many of  his poems have been set to music as oratorios, cantatas and hymns, whereas some of his novels have been set on stage and televised. Some of his poems may be found on CD.

The book makes it clear that through the medium of literature Friggieri assumes the role of the conscience of a nation. He proclaims its traditional positive elements in his longer poetic works, but exposes its present negative qualities in his fiction. His prose is not a weapon for war but a cry for justice and honesty. It is simple enough to retain the common readers' attention and intriguing enough to involve their thinking.

This is Ħsiebu Jsuqu, written by Charles Briffa, who is Professor of Maltese Literature and Translation at the University of Malta, and who is himself a literary critic. It is published by Horizons and is available from all Agenda bookshops.