In politics and fiction writing, you need to know and care deeply about people, understand how they feel, what they want and what their stories are, Alfred Sant tells Kristina Cassar Dowling.

Expression comes in so many forms, whether it’s a spoken ideology of yourself, a mass representation of your leadership skills or documentation of your inner thoughts presented in written form - the art of that creation is a means of survival to introspective individuals. 

Literature allows us to develop our thinking and reflection – pushing us to reach further and inspire fresh ideas, evaluate matters from new perspectives and re-experience life.

Childhood is generally the first encounter with literature in our life, and for Alfred Sant it was no different.

“As a kid, my father would read from books to me and he set me on the path to reading.” 

The first steps into a literary world might inspire creative thought or boost imagination for most, but for some it translates into the experimentation with expressive writing.

“Before I could write, I would scribble long jagged lines from end to end of a page, line by line, with a pencil pretending I was writing.” 

Sant’s early connection to childhood stories inspired a thirst for more content, where stories were learnt and shared with others.

Sant is a former prime minister and a current member of the European Parliament – but his literary value is critically acclaimed for the intricate detail, plotting and storytelling. Sant believes that politics and writing fiction work rather closely, relying on certain criteria to be met to be successful.

“In politics and fiction writing, you need to know and care deeply about people, understand how they feel, what they want, what their stories are. You can hardly get more similar than that.”

Alfred Sant’s Western: bejn rakkonti, bejn divertimenti (SKS, 2016) won first prize in the category ‘Short Stories in Maltese and English’ of the 2016 National Book Prize

When creative impulses arise, detailed and organised preparation as well as clear thought processes are imperative to getting a glimpse of the bigger picture; while this is valid for both politics and creative writing, the different genres of literature require the same kind of work ethic. For Sant it’s all about action.

“When you know you have something to write about, you just do it. The setting is immaterial. Some of the time it's going to be a hard slog, other times the writing will flow. No matter how it happens, you have to go back to what you've written, one, twice and more, to change, correct, delete, edit and add.”

With social-isolation and increased downtime in our homes, most of us have taken to old pastimes, discovered new lifestyle habits and changed the way we conduct our work. While self-isolation has not greatly impacted Sant’s life as a writer, it has urged him to accept new means of communication: “Self-isolation helped me come to terms with the need for virtual – long distance I call them – meetings, which I always detested.”

Malta’s partial lockdown has also kept Sant on track of his reading schedule, where he generally reads three to four books at a time. He is currently reading Arthur C Clarke's 2061, Odyssey 3, Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel and Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad. 

Sant’s reading list of varied genres and authors must, in some way, contribute to this literary oeuvre, with ideas being generated through different mindsets, but his allocation of writing style is not restricted to certain genres or storylines. 

“The themes of the narratives you want to write will choose the format that fits them: there were short stories that turned into novels and novels that morphed into plays.

“I stopped writing plays because in my day, there was no outlet for their production, which meant there could be no development and renewal in whatever I could write for a non-existent theatre.”

His Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Literature at the 2019 edition of the National Book Prize was a deserving recognition that encompasses Sant’s entire portfolio of work. His reaction to the achievement was humbling and also, eye-opening;

“To be honest I thought it [the award] should have been given to a writer coming from a generation post mine. I told the organizers so, but they disagreed. Their insistence made me even more age conscious than I already was. Despite this, I thanked them for their interest and promised to write at least another novel.”

While Sant’s contribution to literature varies in style, theme, approach and essence, there seems to be a worldy reference that the author attributes to life’s memories. He expresses that, “memory and its interactions with how we live and will live” could be considered a recurring theme throughout his collection.

“One could say that all individuals are an array of memories that try to repeat themselves as we proceed in life. But one never steps in the same river twice, so life becomes a process by which memories get reworked. You will see that most creative writing can be understood as the story of how this happens, the archaeology of memory if you like.”

Sant’s comments on newly published material remains open-ended.

“I have a personal taboo. You don't speak about works in progress, actual or potential. It brings bad luck.”

This interview is part of a series of interviews with local authors, supported by the National Book Council. Read interviews with Alex Vella Gera, Clare Azzopardi, Walid Nabhan, Nadia Mifsud, Ġużè Stagno, Karl Schembri, Oliver Friggieri and Louis Briffa.