“If only her readers could have seen that she was a woman with the same vulnerabilities and anxieties as them […] the bravura of her writing masked it, but she was afraid of what Muscat was going to do to the country – and to her.”

Paul Caruana Galizia’s pained exclamation in the biography dedicated to his mother, titled A Death in Malta, captures the gist of this riveting page-turner. It reveals a woman who overcame her fears time and time again to denounce corruption and voice truth.

The hard-nosed social and political critic is still very present but the book provides a rounder picture of a woman of exacting standards and little time for compromise. It also reveals the unwavering determination of three sons to see justice done, at the cost of giving up their livelihoods in order to dedicate themselves fully to their just cause.

Caruana Galizia provides the human side to a woman with an unquenchable passion for writing, sitting at a borrowed Smith Corona typewriter, who would eventually moved to a computer running ‘WordPress’ installed by her son, Matthew, churning out the Running Commentary many of us read.

An independent thinker who feared being shackled by editors or newspaper owners, she set out to make it on her own, receiving as many as one million hits per day on her blog.

He traces the high price she paid – apart from the arson attacks and the poisoning of her dogs, her son tells of the numerous invitations that dwindled into almost nothing, the trolls who did not read her actual writing but were set by the Labour Party to viciously attack her, the lawsuits that her family still have to endure.

In contrast, we learn of the peace she found in cultivating her garden, when hypocrites and attackers forced her to retreat more and more into her home. As he points out, Daphne was the first political critic to boldly own her convictions by signing her name to her articles.

Yet, due to her boldness, she was mercilessly hounded by a party that attacked her very womanhood, by transforming her into a witch, and by that distorted reasoning, a creature fit to be burned.  No wonder she herself remarked that her life was like living in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, depicting a 17th-century witch-hunt.

Caruana Galizia carefully chronicles Joseph Muscat’s abuses after taking power, “weakening institution after institution”, starting from the demotion of Police Commissioner John Rizzo, which drove people to turn to his mother. His short, clipped remarks hammer the message home: “Everyone benefitted. The institutions were finally working. My mother was the problem.”

It is about time that a full history of the 1970s and 1980s is written- Vicki Ann Cremona

The book also reveals Daphne the mother and the reasons why she was so dearly loved by her children – her dedication to them, her adamant insistence on good breeding and manners, her encouragement in helping them find their own ways in life.

A Death in Malta

Caruana Galizia provides glimpses into the boys’ childhood and youth – their scrapes, their belligerent teenage stances and the ways these were capably handled by their mother. 

On the flip side, he communicates the anguish and suffering they went through, together with their father, after their mother’s barbaric killing.

The story does not stop there. The boys’ efforts to raise international consciousness about the evil and corruption in Malta – the reason for their mother’s assassination – is one of the many elements that makes this book a fascinating read. It is a story of sheer iron will to pursue her fight against injustice, to spread truth in the face of a whole machination of lies and deceit from the State.

I particularly enjoyed reading about her large contribution to ensuring that people voted Malta into the EU, one of the wisest decisions we Maltese have ever taken. I greatly appreciated the author’s description of the years that he, and our young generation, have not known – the tough 1970s and 1980s when corruption and suppression of freedom first became the norm. 

He lists some of the atrocities committed at the time, from the firing of all Maltese doctors who stood up to the government, to the burning of the Times of Malta building. He provides details about the illegal arrest and detainment of his mother. He even mentions the infamous disgusting chocolate Desserta that most of the population, rich and poor alike, refused to eat.

It is about time that a full history of the 1970s and 1980s is written, where all the outrage that people had to undergo – and his mother’s victimisation – is properly chronicled. The chapters dedicated to all this injustice are a good start.

Caruana Galizia’s style is articulate, well-turned and, at times, somewhat poetic. His message is direct and makes us face the truth about our country. A book seriously worth reading.

Vicki Ann Cremona is an academic.