The mask we refuse to remove

Il-Maskra

by Anton Sammut

Self-published, 2026

Maltese literature has long been preoccupied with identity – how it is formed, inherited and expressed. In recent years, however, that concern has undergone a subtle but important shift. The question is no longer simply who we are, but whether what we present as identity retains any substance at all – or whether it has become entirely contingent on perception.

It is within this context that Il-Maskra, by Maltese author Anton Sammut, emerges as a striking and quietly unsettling work.

At first glance, the novel appears to offer a familiar premise: a protagonist, Adam, navigating the expectations and pressures of contemporary Maltese life. Yet this surface quickly gives way to something more probing.

The world he inhabits is not merely social, it is performative in a deeper sense. Roles are not simply adopted; they are sustained through repetition, adjustment and mutual recognition. What appears natural is, in fact, continuously constructed.

The central suggestion is both simple and disquieting: identity has become a performance so constant that it is no longer recognised as such. It is experienced instead as reality.

Adam’s trajectory is, therefore, less a conventional narrative than a gradual unravelling of certainty. Early sections are marked by restraint – controlled prose, careful observation, a sense of distance. This is a consciousness still operating within the structures it observes.

As the narrative progresses, however, that control begins to loosen. Following a pivotal rupture in Adam’s personal world, the language opens out. Sentences lengthen, rhythms shift and the prose assumes a more reflective, searching quality.

This is not merely a stylistic development. It reflects a transformation in perception. What begins as observation turns into awareness; what once appeared self-evident begins to feel contingent, almost fragile, as though it depends less on truth than on continued agreement.

Much of the work’s force lies in its treatment of what might be termed “social masks”. These are not presented as decorative metaphors, but as operative structures – patterns through which individuals organise behaviour, language and their sense of self. The insight is not that individuals conceal an authentic core, but that they come to inhabit these structures so completely that the distinction between mask and identity begins to dissolve.

In this sense, Il-Maskra moves beyond social commentary into more probing terrain. It suggests that identity is not simply expressed but regulated, shaped through expectation, reinforced through interaction, and maintained through subtle forms of adjustment that rarely appear as constraint. What presents itself as choice often carries the quiet weight of what has already been defined as acceptable.

Il-Maskra is not a novel about identity − it is a novel about how identity is made to appear inevitable

There is, within this inquiry, a recognisable portrait of contemporary Malta: a society shaped by visibility, expectation and an acute sensitivity to how one is seen. Yet the novel resists being confined to the local. Malta functions less as subject than as a concentrated field in which a broader condition becomes visible.

Importantly, Il-Maskra refuses resolution. There is no decisive moment of clarity, no stable truth revealed beneath the layers. What remains, as Adam’s awareness deepens, is not certainty but a heightened attentiveness – a form of perception that observes without immediately fixing meaning, and in doing so begins to unsettle the need for meaning itself to remain stable.

This gives the novel its distinctive edge. It does not reassure, nor does it condemn. Instead, it exposes the mechanisms through which meaning – and by extension, identity – is continuously produced and sustained.

The satirical elements are present and often sharply drawn – material aspiration, social conformity, the quiet mechanics of status – but they never become the end point. The work moves beyond critique towards something more fundamental: a questioning of the conditions under which identity is formed, maintained and recognised.

In doing so, it places the reader in an uneasy position. The patterns described are not distant or abstract. They are familiar, recognisable and difficult to dismiss, not because they are imposed, but because they are lived.

And that, perhaps, is the work’s most effective gesture.

Il-Maskra is not a novel about identity − it is a novel about how identity is made to appear inevitable. Nor does it ask whether others wear masks; it asks whether we can still recognise our own.

This is a measured and intellectually assured work that engages directly with the conditions of contemporary life in Malta, while extending beyond them into a broader philosophical inquiry. Its strength lies in its restraint: it trusts the reader not simply to follow but to perceive.

Sammut has produced a work that is less concerned with providing answers than with altering the conditions under which questions are asked. What emerges is not resolution, but a shift in awareness – subtle, persistent and difficult to reverse.

Il-Maskra is not a novel that offers comfort. It is one that invites attention. And in the present moment, that may be precisely what is required.

Karl Coleiro is a qualified teacher, counsellor and proofreader.