'Filli ma Tcun Xein, Filli Tithol Fl'Esistenza 
Jew Marzu, April, Mejju'
Author: Immanuel Mifsud 
Publisher: Klabb Kotba Maltin / 2024
Pages: 119pp

Edgar Darmanin is what we would call a normal male living in Malta in the first decade of this millennium, working partly in Germany and partly in Malta, as a result of Malta joining the EU.

That's the bare bones context of Immanuel Mifsud's latest novel. As in other contemporary novels such as Guze Spagno's What happens in Brussels stays in Brussels, working abroad offers an opportunity and a release for the protagonist's sexual drive which are expressed in a series of love affairs.

Actually, however, Darmanin did not really need to move abroad for his sexual drive to come alive.

This had to be done clandestinely, though observant neighbours and relatives could have found what was going on. To guilt-ridden Darmanin's great surprise the same had been happening even before his time.

I can relate to the childhood he describes and more so my better half whose family has relatives in Bormla. When young, many times she was taken to her nanna in Bormla on foot from Hamrun, passing through the blackened Ghajn Dwieli tunnel, though she never tells of the tunnel being all that scary.

I could visualise the house with walls covered with religious paintings and on my side a spinster aunt warning of hell, influenced by Dun Gorg who overshadowed her life.

In the book's case the influence comes from an earlier priest, Don Amabile Sisner with his primitive Maltese spelling not just in the book's title but also in some quotations. I know of only one other contemporary who draws from that same source of archaic Maltese spelling.

There are secrets everywhere, buried in the past and both Edgar's parents have secrets which mostly follow them to the tomb. Those secrets which are revealed show that life has always been the same, despite the dire warnings and the fear of hell.

Almost on the spur of the moment Edgar brings with him one of his current girlfriends and she manages to find a corresponding loving relationship with his ailing mother since she could say she never had a mother.

Still, at the book's end we cannot say with any certainty what's going to happen.