Charles Briffa writes:

Oliver Friggieri (1947-2020), poet, novelist, and literary critic, was born in Floriana, and lived in most part of his life in Birkirkara. Many of his works have been translated into various languages. He addressed about 70 international congresses in various countries and his poetry was included in some of the major poetry recitals held throughout Europe. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, criticism, novels, and short stories – about 30 of which have been published in various countries.

He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles published in many international academic journals, and the winner of international prizes, including Premio Mediterraneo Internazionale (Palermo, 1988), Malta Government Literary Awards (1988, 1996, 1997), and Premio Faber 2004 (Campidoglio, Rome). He was also awarded the Gold Medal for his contribution to Maltese Literature by the Akkademja tal-Malti (2016). He was professor of literature at the University of Malta and he wrote in Maltese, English and Italian.

 Friggieri started writing creatively in the 1960s. Most of his works examine the dynamic relations in the nation’s history and how the Maltese came to be as they are, by discussing human potentialities and penetrating universal truths which may be perceived as social forces working on a nation’s mentality that reflects contemporary worldwide characteristic attitudes. His literature is a persistent call on humanity to respect honesty.

 In his poetry, which cries out for humanity, Friggieri treats life’s tribulations, man’s relation with God, the significance of death, the relevance of history vis-à-vis man’s destiny, the individual as a member of society that has to be counted, and national themes that give Malta its identity. His themes, often treated philosophically, are largely social and psychological and his style is characterised with logical rationality. The intellectual character of his poetry, therefore, imparts universal truths.

In his fiction, most particularly, he dons the robe of the voice of a nation’s conscience and attempts to redeem positive moral values. He was frequently concerned with the intimate to improve the outward and the typical and for him, history was a vehicle for what he wanted to say about his own times. Literature gave him room for intellectual discussion and his novels became agents for the moral imagination. He often poured his controversial draught on society to drench it and shock it into realisation.

He respected traditions but was unafraid to break some of them. His task was not to encourage man to hope for a better environment, but to encourage people to face reality and to still their soul to bear evils and shortcomings with fortitude and determination. And all this was endowed with a Mediterranean attitude because his creativity in literature was all motivated by the theme of an islander living in the South of Europe, facing Northern Africa – a literature that depicted life at the centre of the Mediterranean, portraying it as a nation’s unique experience that he interpreted as an integration of Semitic, Latin, and English cultures. His translated novels have been published in English by Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd, London, UK.

Furthermore, he has featured quite prominently in my This Fair Land (Francis Boutle Publishers, London, UK, 2014), a comprehensive overview of the development of the Maltese language and its literature from the early periods of the second millennium to the first decades of the 21st century)

Friggieri has been translated in several languages and he was instrumental in promoting Malta throughout the cultural world.