What prompted you to write a well known Maltese legend ‘The Bride of Mosta’, a novel based on folklore?

The Bride of Mosta is a legend I grew up with in Mosta. Actually the castle's name is Torri Cumbo. It is still there, though very run down. Besides, my mother who had a good singing voice used to sing the ballad of the sad plight of the Bride of Mosta while she did her laundry in our yard by the well. The novel starts with the first stanza of the ballad and ends with the last.

 

But your story isn't just relating the sad tale of the bride who was carried away into serfdom…

After each stanza there starts a new story – a modern day account of the problems the protagonist has to face when she and her husband decide to return to their island home in the sun.

 

What gave you the idea of intertwining two separate stories from very different times and situations into one wholesome story without confusing the issue or theme of this novel? Was this difficult to achieve?

Ah! That was the most difficult vision of the story. So I looked for the theme of the story. I wanted to empathise with the suffering and the agony of the bride at the loss of her love. On the other hand there was the suffering the mother has to endure; the disaster that overtook her own family. The theme goes through the whole length of the protagonist and of the bride's family who had lost their only daughter.

As such the concept of ransom is central to both narratives and binds the old with the modern in a story of unconditional love. On one hand it is the unconditional love of the bridegroom for his bride; on the other hand it is the love of a mother for her son. This is a fictional novel – a literary novel. Usually, a male protagonist is associated with romantic love.  In the Bride of Mosta my protagonist is the one who is ready to sell his parents' inheritance in an act of unconditional love.  On the other hand, the mother of Marius has the "eager" love of the mother that turns upside-down the "world" to search for the "treasure" that is the reason of her life, her son.

 

 But your novel isn't just a work of folklore like your other works, or even about love. It is more than that...

That's true, in fact, my whole world has been enriched with folktales from all parts of the world. I have been lucky to have lived in three different countries with my husband so at every opportunity I read the latest books available. At the teacher's college we studied about the monster Beowulf in the castle of Heorot, which meant very little to me in those days.  Only with time did I come to understand its message. Even in psychotherapy it is said that man is helpless to help himself alone. ‘There are forces of the pure spirit.’

 

Local politics, and, to a lesser extent, religion play a prominent role in this book. Do you have a personal interest in them?

Not having lived on the island permanently it was difficult for me to get really involved in politics although it was difficult not to be affected by it. However, the political background runs through the whole gamut of my novel as background to the Bride of Mosta, a time which contrasts beautifully with the 60s and 70s to this day.

Living abroad where religion as I knew it and as I was brought up to, one's faith gets tested in no uncertain way. But having had a wonderfully Catholic and religious upbringing from my parents, especially my mother, I had no problem with continuing in my faith. However, on my return to my island home life was changing at a great pace. I saw Malta changing overnight. It is so easy to lose one's faith in a secular society, however, we still enjoyed free will.

 

The use of illegal drugs and of legal tranquillisers is emphasised a lot in this book. Did you feel you had a special message to give the reader?

As I said, I read a true story about the prescription of tranquillisers by a famous American, Barbara Gordon, I'm dancing as fast as I can. In England at the time there was a society named Tranquillisers Anonymous. I even joined the society at the time it was founded. I had also witnessed the rising tide of drug-taking abroad and the onset of it on this little island.

 

To what extent would you say The Bride of Mosta is an autobiographical novel?

Yes, most of my works are autobiographical. The most heartbreaking story I wrote was about the war when I was 10 years old. It is written for young people and adults alike. Writing it was a release for me from the horror I had witnessed in one air raid in the shelter. The theme of The Bride of Mosta, although it is fictionalised, grew into a comment about life living in modern times. 

 

Did you write The Bride of Mosta specifically for a Maltese audience or did you want it to have international appeal?

Every writer who has a message to give aspires to have one's message read by one and all. In fact the story finishes with ‘only those who can love, those who live to love, to give, can truly hope to live in a Utopia and hear the song of the bride as sung by my mother in her backyard’.