The 50th anniversary of poet Ruzar Briffa’s death was marked with a musico-literary evening at San Anton Palace, put up by the Office of the President, the university’s Department of Maltese, the Akkademja tal-Malti, and the Ghaqda tal-Malti – Universita.

Briffa was in his time known as the poet of beauty. He was born in 1906, specialised in skin diseases and worked among the leper community in Malta and in India.

The evening was opened with an audio visual biography of the poet, prepared by the Office of the President and there were addresses by Dr Bernard Micallef and Prof. Oliver Friggieri. Dr Adrian Grima and Dr Immanuel Mifsud made a literary appreciation on three themes of Briffa’s poetry: the passage of time, unfulfilled wishes, and solitude in suffering and sickness.

Works by briffa were dramatised, with the participation of actors Renato Dimech, Sean Buhagiar, Alison Abela and Rowena Gauci Davison.