Updated 1.10pm with Book Council response
Award-winning author Walid Nabhan is set to leave Malta in the coming weeks, driven away by rising costs and dwindling work opportunities that he says have left him penniless.
Nabhan announced his decision to leave Malta in a Facebook post on Sunday, expressing his dismay at the country “to which I gave my life, but which gave me nothing in return when I stumbled”.
Nabhan will be returning to Jordan, the country where he was born and raised, before moving to Malta almost 35 years ago.
Nabhan established himself as a leading figure in Malta’s literary field throughout his years in the country. His acclaimed semi-biographical novel L-Eżodu taċ-Ċikonji (The Exodus of the Storks) won Malta’s National Book Prize in 2013 and the European Prize for Literature a few years later in 2017.
The novel tells the story of a Palestinian refugee who flees from his homeland and finds himself living in Malta.
Nabhan’s family made a similar journey, fleeing the Palestinian city of Hebron into neighbouring Jordan during the 1948 nakba in which almost a million Palestinians were forced out of their homes. He still maintains strong links to Palestine, with much of his extended family having remained in the country to this day.
“At least 18 members of my extended family have been killed in Gaza since October”, he says. "It could be more, but it's difficult to contact them these days".
Book Council contract scrapped
Nabhan will be making a journey of his own in the coming weeks, as he reluctantly prepares to leave Malta and move in with his sister in the Jordanian city of Amman.
“I love Malta more than anywhere, even more than Palestine”, he told Times of Malta when contacted. “I’m not leaving because I’m unhappy. I’m leaving because I can’t feed myself, I can’t even buy myself a piece of bread”.
Nabhan says his livelihood was put in danger when the National Book Council decided to terminate his contract shortly after the entity’s leadership changed from one Mark Camilleri to another.
He says he had been engaged by the book council to translate books from Maltese to Arabic, successfully translating eight books over a two-year period.
“I was contracted to work 20 hours per week, but in reality, I worked much more,” he said. “I even paid for two of the translations out of my own pocket”.
Throughout this time, Nabhan translated work by leading contemporary Maltese authors including Loranne Vella, Alex Vella Gera, Immanuel Mifsud, as well as works by Malta’s national poet, Dun Karm Psaila.
Nabhan sees his translation work as bridging Malta and the neighbouring Arabic-speaking world. “It is important to address our neighbours, we have so much in common. Literature helps us connect to our neighbours. Now that connection has been lost”.
In a response, the Book Council said Nabhan's contract for part time work expired in March 2020 but that he continued his work until September 2021. He also continued to work for Malta Dairy Products.
"Upon the transition to new leadership, it was identified that Mr Nabhan had been working without a regularised contract, as per public procurement regulations," it said.
The contract was terminated in April 2022.
"It's crucial to highlight that termination was not abrupt; rather, Mr Nabhan was allowed to complete his ongoing assignment, namely the translation of Alfred Sant's Bħal F'Dizzjunarju.
"Subsequently he was informed in person of the termination in accordance with the contractual provisions and offered work per project."
The Book Council paid tribute to Nabhan's "substantial" contribution to Maltese literature.
‘If I could feed myself, I would stay’
Nabhan’s situation took a turn for the worse when the landlord of the Swieqi home where he lived for 30 years upped his rent from €400 a month to almost €1,000 he says. Unable to afford rent payments, he moved to Marsa, where he has lived for the past five years.
Nabhan says things have remained difficult since then.
“I love Malta but life is too expensive. I had some savings but now they’re all gone,” he says.
He is now packing his belongings ahead of his move, but he knows that he will have to part with much of his treasured 4,000-strong book collection.
“I don’t know what to do with them, perhaps I’ll give them to a local library.”
But Nabhan says there is “a ray of light”.
His Facebook post was met with an outpouring of affection from fellow writers, artists and academics. He says he received several calls over the past two days, including some from entities hoping to offer him an opportunity to work and stay in Malta.
Nabhan says he would need little convincing. “If I could work here and feed myself, I would stay. I would return from Jordan in a heartbeat. Malta is my home”.