'Ir-Raġel ta' wara l-kwinti'

Author: Joe Camilleri

Publisher: Horizons Publications  / 2025

Pages: 152pp

"Ite ad Joseph" "Go to Joseph" - this quotation is taken from the Old Testament, from Exodus, and refers to a different Joseph, the one who rose to prominence under the Pharoah.

But when it is used in churches, above altars, etc., it would be referring to Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Considering the other books by this author, this is a rather strange offering - a collection of short stories all concerning St Joseph, not from a historical but rather from his variegated interventions in today's world.

Taken geographically many of the stories seem to relate to places that have St Joseph as their patron saint - Qala especially, but also Għaxaq, where he is the secondary patron. But none that I can find about Hamrun, where he is also the secondary patron. And above all Rabat where his feast on 19 March opens the festa season.

In fact, many of the stories relate in one way or another to church decorations and to the procession with the statue of the saint.

None that I could identify regarding Msida, another parish dedicated to the saint except the one related to Anton Inglott's famous painting of the death of the saint.

Many years ago I had read a book on St Joseph by Jan Dobraczyński written in the 1970s La sombra del Padre and in a way this book's title reminded me of it, though that has a more theological approach.

This book has a more homely approach, almost verging on the legendary.

This collection of stories follows a first collection, Ir-raġel tas-skiet, published in 2011, again on St Joseph, which had been very popular with readers.

The stories portray a world that is no longer, a world of processions and funerals, a world of parish priests organising lotteries, in other words, portrayed by the television serial Ipokriti.

And the intimate lives of couples, which compared to today's, is strangely without travel and computers.