I would like to congratulate Immanuel Mifsud (The Times, 11 May) on the EU Prize he has been awarded. Given his appeal (“Crit me, please – Maltese authors want honest feedback”, MaltaToday, 27 September 2011), I would also like to give him my honest feedback to his reasoning as reported by The Times.

It would seem that the main points raised by Mr Mifsud were that Maltese authors:

• need to “become conscious that our market is wider, [because] then our perspective and our writing will change” − this can be achieved through the deployment of “an army of literary translators”;

• “are concerned with image, not with content” – they are “not people who think a lot”;

• are “gagged by taboos” – the blame lies with “the political parties [who] have planted the mentality that you have to belong to one of them, at all costs. You don’t really see this dualism anywhere else”; and

• fear taking a stand, hence “much of Maltese prose [is] void of political references” – “apart from Oliver Friggieri’s Fil-Parlament Ma Jikbrux Fjuri, there was just one author who took a clear position: Trevor Żahra, and […] he paid the price for it”.

I find most of Mr Mifsud’s assertions defective or contradictory. For instance, if Maltese authors still need to change and to start thinking, what’s the use of investing in an army of literary translators?

Even more puzzling is Mr Mifsud’s claim that only two authors have written anything with political references. I will mention only one of my late father’s works, Ħrejjef Żminijietna, which The Sunday Times reviewer Paul Xuereb called “political satire and lush romance” (18 March 2001). Apart from my father, there are numerous other writers whose writings are replete with political references – others not afraid of taking a stand. Mr Żahra was not the only one to pay a price: my father, and by association his family, did too. So let us please not spread half-truths.

I find Mr Mifsud’s contention that Maltese prose is devoid of political references necessarily incorrect. Indeed, as someone once said, “everything is political” – and literature, all literature, being the mirror of practically everything, is by its own nature political. Every literary work has been nothing but political. At least for the past 800 years, to be precise, ever since the modern State began to emerge. Why, isn’t Dante a political writer? And Shakespeare? One hopes Mr Mifsud does not think Romeo and Juliet is just a love story… Indeed, the whole thing is one big stratagem to give a platform to Prince Escalus and his thesis (which, though half a century early, is essentially Hobbesian) that the State is the antidote to perpetual civil strife. Yet, despite Hobbes, the State itself (even in its post-absolutist manifestations) is by its very nature the creator of more civil strife than it supposedly quells.

Which brings us to why Mr Mifsud’s proposition to put the blame on political parties is not only inaccurate but also invalid. It is the State system, of which the parties are but an implement, which should shoulder the “blame”. The State politicised the existence of its subjects – and literature has been reflecting this; take Don Quixote as an example: Cervantes pours derision upon (an idealized?) old medieval system in which Knights (i.e., private individuals) did what the State would later do. Which reminds me of Freud’s immense interest in this novel, the Viennese doctor’s mission being also to analyse the subjects whom the State renders devoid of passion. The State-subject relationship is further articulated in Victor Hugo (e.g. Les Misérables) say, down to Orwell and Kafka, and García Márquez’s No One Writes to the Colonel, to mention but a few examples. But then again, does “blaming” the State mean anything? Isn’t it like “blaming” the sun for the drought, thereby anthropomorphizing it?

Mussolini used to argue that the 20th century was the Century of the State. Indeed the State did reach the end-point of its ascendant arc in the last century, only then to start its descent, reflected in contemporary literature. Even that which is not overly political. The domination by the State (also during its decline) of the individual’s entire living experience leaves no other option. It is an ontological given that all literature has to be political. This situation is best portrayed, to my mind, in Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly when Blondie and Tuco, who are minding their own business looking for the dead man’s treasure, stumble upon the Battle for the Bridge: the Civil War, the war between two parties. The metaphor is phenomenally potent: the bridge which connects the two sides (of the river, of society) has to be blown up… Long story short, whatever you’re doing in and with your life, you’ll always stumble upon the State and the partisan “war” going on within it.

This ontological experience therefore belies Mr Mifsud’s factually baseless contention that “you don’t really see this dualism anywhere else”. I think you see this dualism everywhere! It is in the nature of things! I will not ask Mr Mifsud if he remembers how Nathaniel Hawthorne was removed from office after a change in government. I will instead remind him of the division in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants, and in Scotland between those of the Orange Order and the others … to mention but two examples. Dualism is everywhere. It’s almost a Manichaean world. And it is explained by Aureliano Buendía in 100 Years of Solitude.

Literary translation is a highly specialized field, not open for conscription. As a nod to Mr Mifsud’s bellicose metaphor, perhaps then a lean and highly-trained Commando Squad would be more suited than an Incredible Brancaleone Translation Army. After all, let’s face it, not all ‘literary works’ – I use the phrase in the Copyright Act, more than the critical, sense – merit translation. And those that do merit it require a meticulous and painstaking effort.

Translations of Maltese prose are not unknown, even in these pre-Translation Army times. Maud Ruston and Ibrahim Irnigami have translated Ġużè Chetcuti; Alfred Sant, himself; Charles Briffa, Oliver Friggieri; Paul Xuereb, Joe Friggieri; Carmel Mallia, my father’s Il-Ħolma Maltija to Esperanto and a team of translators, his Bonaparti f’Malta to French. So perhaps Maltese authors do not require salvation. That Maltese authors have narrow horizons can be easily confuted even by referring to the praise Joe Friggieri’s work received in The Times Literary Supplement (London), and the “colossal work” accolade earned by Carmel Mallia’s translation of my father’s novel.

I once again heartily congratulate Mr Mifsud for the EU Prize he has been awarded. May his dreams come true. All in all, they must be in good faith.

Mark A. Sammut

LL.D., M.Jur, M.A., PGDipLaws(Lond)