In November 2020, Malta lost a great writer, thinker and poet who was the epitome of Malta’s soul, heritage and intellect, namely Prof. Oliver Friggieri.
For me, it was a tragic loss of a very dear friend. I heard the sad news only 24 hours after I had heard of the passing away in Tripoli of a mutual friend for me and Oliver, the Libyan academic and poet Abdelmola Albagdadi, who was a victim of COVID-19.
The three of us were colleagues at the University of Malta in the mid-1990s. Abdelmola Albagdadi and I taught Arabic language and literature while Oliver Friggieri was the head of Maltese studies at the University of Malta. We shared love for literature and poetry and travelled together to Tripoli on more than one occasion, where Oliver gave poetry recitals.
In those poetry reading sessions, both in Tripoli and Malta, I can still vividly remember the childish joy on his face when he listened to the cadence and rhythm of his poems in my Arabic renderings, retaining some of the common words between the two languages. Poetry literally transformed Oliver or, perhaps, revealed the unfathomable depths of his soul.
By nature, Oliver was a rather shy, little withdrawn and reticent person but, as soon as you got to know him, you discovered a gentle and compassionate soul underneath that facade, with an incredible intellectual power and energy that attracted you like a magnate. Not only did he devote himself to teaching, conveying his knowledge and wisdom to generations of Maltese students, but he was also a prolific writer who mastered several genres, including poetry novels, short stories and literary discourse.
He also compiled dictionaries and wrote studies of great depth on the Maltese language and Maltese poets, such as Dun Karm. In my modest view, he was one of the greatest figures, after Joseph Aquilina, who devoted a lifetime to the study and elevation of Maltese language and literature.
It was Oliver the poet that I closely identified with. His poems are revelations of a tortured soul seeking its own salvation but, in the process of reading Oliver’s poems, both the poet and the reader are redeemed. In so many ways he was indeed a “distraught pilgrim” in this journey of life, a title which Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott chose for his translated collection of Oliver’s poems into English, for which he wrote an excellent introduction.
It was Oliver the poet that I closely identified with- Saadun Suayeh
It was indeed my hope to produce an Arabic translation of Oliver Friggieri’s poems and I still have a manuscript of some of the poems I already translated, some of which Oliver truly liked, but, until now, I never published any of them. It is my sincere hope that I will be able to publish them soon as a tribute to a great poet and a token of my love for his beautiful poems. I truly wish I could have done so while he was still alive but although the poet may physically perish, his poems never do.
If it is of any consolation to Oliver’s friends and his students, at least two of his fictional works have already been translated into Arabic. The first is his collection of short stories entitled in Maltese Stejjer Għal Qabel Jidlam, which was beautifully and masterfully translated into Arabic by Prof. Martin Zammit in 2003, under the auspices of my dear friend, Richard Vella Laurenti, who introduced me to Oliver and who was one of his closest friends since childhood.
Richard served as Malta’s ambassador to Libya and several other countries. As for Prof. Martin Zammit, also a dear friend and colleague, his knowledge of Arabic puts him at the rank of the most refined scholars of Arabic.
The other work translated into Arabic by a Libyan writer is Oliver’s novel Fil-Parlament ma jikbrux fjuri.
I will always remember and cherish my memories with Oliver Friggieri. I can never forget the moments when we stood together on the stage and when he read, as his face glowed with a noble pain, quivering with every syllable, the following lines:
“Int pellegrin distratt Ii tilef triqtu, int qronfla Ii ma tfuħx, kunjom bla isem, u isem bla kunjom, int xejn ‒ int ibni.” (“You’re a distraught pilgrim who’s lost his way, an odourless carnation, nameless surname, surnameless name, a stray naught – my true son”.)
I would afterwards read my Arabic translation, trying to emulate the original and identify with the master. As I would reach the end with the Arabic rendering of int xejn – int ibni, using almost the same words, I could see tears in the poet’s eyes.
May his soul rest in peace.
Saadun Suayeh, Ambassador of Libya.