The author has given the Maltese public a series of drama and radio plays over the years many of which went on to collect awards.

He is also the author of a number of books on the history of music composition in Malta over the past two centuries.

The book being reviewed here contains two plays - Kull ġieħ u glorja and Dawk li fuq l-iġfna jbaħħru.

The first play is schematically presented on stage in four mini stages with light and darkness marking the different scenes.

In the 1970s a contemplative monastery in Malta is facing an existential crisis. There are only three old nuns in the vast building and no prospects whatsoever of new entrants.

The situation is so dire that the bishop sends a special messenger to tell the nuns to close the monastery and relocate to a home for the elderly.

This message is like a death sentence to the nuns especially to the Mother Superior, a woman of nerves of steel who engages in a battle of wits with the bishop's representative.

Some 30 years later, that is at the turn of the century, all the nuns have died and the bishop's representative has become the bishop of Malta. Although the monastery is closed there are rumours that miracles have been happening in it.

The Vatican, always sensitive to such rumours, sends for the Bishop of Malta to report on what is happening. There is an urgency in this as the number of people gathering at the monastery is growing all the time.

I don't want to reveal more because there is a terrible twist in the story. I only want to point out to the author that Pope Boniface VIII (page 22) is not a canonised Pope. Certainly not for Dante who kicks him to hell.

The second play is a more linear one and slightly resembles a story by Lino Spiteri.

The focus is the fishing village of Marsaxlokk. A young student from Ħamrun is sent to do research on a family of fishermen and the village parish priest offers to do the introduction.

The student is entranced with this new world which he never knew existed. Romance comes in too but at the end we are left with Sidney Carton's famous last words from Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities - "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known".

The anxiety of the entire population of the fishing village as the boats come in after a storm is well portrayed.