Poet, Novelist, and Playwright

Born in Cospicua, the son of Joseph Chetcuti and Regina née Attard. Ġużè, brother of Ġorġ*, studied at St Albert’s central school, Valletta and the teachers’ college at Valletta, entering government service as a primary teacher in 1936 but was appointed store officer with the medical and health department in 1938. In 1940 he joined the editorial staff of the information office as translator, also working as radio announcer during the war years.

Re-joining the education department, Chetcuti taught Maltese at the Lyceum (1956-1974), and at the Mater Admirabilis Training College, the sixth-form, and the upper secondary school (1964-1974). He also taught during the emergency teachers’ maturity course and acted as an examiner of Maltese on various examining boards.

Ġużè Chetcuti was actively involved in the Akkademja tal-Malti. A member since 1937, he was secretary (1939-1948), vice-president (1990-1992), and president of its sub-committee for orthographic matters. He was also a life member of the Għaqda Poeti Maltin, council-member of the Malta Drama League, and co-founder of the Xirka għat-Tixrid tal-Ilsien Malti (1939). He was awarded the Città di Valletta in 1986 and was appointed member of the National Order of Merit (M.O.M.) in 1996.

Chetcuti’s publications include poems, novels, criticism and language, and translations.  His novels are essentially social, depicting a contemporary environment full of different characters that help him to represent human values. Each character is a response to the realistic action of his stories which are often built on social and moral aspects. Through his characters and their different moods, Chetcuti examines the condition of his society with all its cultural dispositions. In literary criticism, he is generally considered as being a realistic novelist who contributed to opening the way to literary modernism because from the start of his career he did not concentrate on the traditional themes that produced romantic adventures of fantasy. He constantly sought to reflect his times.

Ġużè Chetcuti married Lina Mifsud on 21 April 1942 and they had three sons: Charles, Adrian and Geoffrey and a daughter, Josephine.

This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.