<b>"Let Fair Weather Bring Me Home: A Maltese Story"</b> // "Deja que el buen tiempo me traiga a casa: una historia de Malta"

Authors

  • Oliver Friggieri Department of Maltese Faculty of Arts University of Malta Msida Malta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2013.4.2.541

Keywords:

Malta, Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

Let Fair Weather Bring Me Home: A Maltese Story (Excerpt from unpublished novel)

Life in itself largely depends on one’s personal relationship with nature. Humankind develops as it discovers new modes of relating more efficiently with whatever surrounds it. Thus both the individual and the social aspects of such a condition greatly  depend on each other. Let Fair Weather Bring Me Home is a Maltese novel which strives to portray such a bond in terms of what it entails to live in a traditional village far removed from the center of the country where nature had to succumb to a great extent to the dictates of culture, and mainly to technology. The descriptive element of the novel, as evinced in this excerpt, is meant not only to construct a context within which the villagers live, but also to suggest a sharp contrast with the modern city, impersonal, overcrowded, noisy and inevitably distant from spaces which are considered to be still undeveloped, namely still left in their primeval state. The depiction of such a way of life in such a village, inspired by an environment typical of Southern Europe, may seem to be simply an evocation of the past, as it originally is, but it also recognizes the fact that such a relationship with nature still survives in various parts of various countries. The essential message of the excerpt is that modern ecological considerations are necessarily the expression of  humanity’s need to rediscover nature and to return to where it once belonged.                  

 

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Author Biography

Oliver Friggieri, Department of Maltese Faculty of Arts University of Malta Msida Malta

University of Malta, Malta

oliver.friggieri@um.edu.mt

Oliver Friggieri, born in Malta in 1947, studied Philosophy and Literature and holds the first M.A. (1975) and Ph.D. (1978) in Maltese Literature. Many of his works have been translated into various languages, including German, Greek, Rumanian, Finnish and Italian. He addressed about seventy international congresses in various countries, and his poetry was included in some of the major poetry recitals held throughout Europe (1981-2003). Author of numerous books of poetry, criticism, novels, short stories, about sixty of which have been published in various countries outside Malta. Author of numerous scholarly articles published in Maltese and international academic journals. Winner of international prizes, including Premio Mediterraneo Internazionale (Palermo, 1988),  Malta Government Literary Award (1988, 1996, 1997), and Premio Internazionale Trieste Poesia (2002). Member of the National Order of Merit (Government of Malta, 1999). Professor and ex-Head of Department of Maltese at the University of Malta. The "Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce" awarded him the Gold Medal for 2003.

The list of his books includes: "La cultura italiana a Malta - Dun Karm" (1978, Florence), "Storia della letteratura maltese" (1986, Milazzo), "Laz" (1982, Belgrade), "Baruhove Zagate" (1982, Ljubljana), "A Turn of the Wheel" (1987, Paisley), "La menzogna" (1997, Genova), "Storie per una sera" (1994, Treviso), "Le rituel du crépuscule" (1991, Paris), "Nous sommes un desir" (1998, Luxembourg), "A Distraught Pilgrim" (1991, Missouri), "Povesti pentru o seara" (1999, Bucharest), "La voce dell'onda" (1991, Alghero), "A Mentira" (Lisbon, 2004),  "Koranta and other short Stories from Malta" (1994, Malta), "Sotto l'ombra degli occhi" (2003, Trieste), "A Malte, Histoires du crepuscule" (2004, Paris), "Dizzjunarju ta' Termini Letterarji" (1995), novels like "Fil-Parlament ma Jikbrux Fjuri" (1986, In Parliament no flowers grow), "Gizimin li qatt ma jiftah" (1998, Jasmins that never open), "It-tfal jigu bil-vapuri" (2000, Children come by ship), and a book of memoirs ‘‘Fjuri li ma Jinxfux’’ (2008, Flowers that never wilt). He writes in Maltese, English and Italian.

Many of his poetical works have been set to music; they include   the oratorios "Pawlu ta' Malta" (1985) and "Dun  Gorg!" (2001), and the cantatas "L-Ghanja ta' Malta" (1989) and "Rewwixta" (1992). 

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Select bibliography:

Steven R. Serafin ed., Encyclopedia of World literature in the Twentieth Century, I-IV, 3ed., St James press, Michigan, 1999 (on Oliver Friggieri see vol. II, p. 175)

Charles Briffa, "The Voice of a Nation's Conscience: Oliver Friggieri's Fiction in Recent Maltese Literature", World Literature Today (The University of Oklahoma), 71, n. 3, Summer 1997, pp. 495-504

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PRIZES

 

First Prize for Literary Criticism (XIV Concorso Silarus, Battipaglia, Italia, 1982)

Premio Internazionale Mediterraneo (Palermo, 1988)

Malta Government Literary Award (Valletta, 1988)

Premio Sampieri per la Poesia (Marsa Siklah, Sicily, 1995)

Malta Government Literary Award (Valletta, 1996)

Malta Government Literary Award - Special Prize (Valletta, 1997)

Malta Government Literary Award - Special Prize (Valletta, 1999)

Premio Internazionale Trieste Poesia (2002)

Gold Medal 2003 (Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Valletta)

Premio Il Collegio (Campidoglio, Roma, 2004)

Ufficiale, Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (Italian Government, 2012).

 

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HONOURS

 

Member of the National Order of Merit (Malta Government, 1999)

Gold Medal, ‘Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce’ (2003)

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MEMBERSHIP

 

Member of  'Association Internationale des Critiques Litteraires' (Paris, since 1983)

Member of P.E.N. Club (Switzerland, since 1998)

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO  INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS

Select list

 

Poetry published in:

Ecriture (Lausanne), Europe (Paris), Sources (Namur), Arpa (Clermont-Ferrand, France), Friches (Auch, France), Omprela (Athens), Nuovo contrappunto (Genova), Archenoah (Munchen), La vallisa (Bari), Skylark (Aligarh, India), Florilege (Dijon, France), Cuadernos del matematico (Getafe), Auraq (Pakistan)

 

 

Scholarly articles published in:

Journal of Commonwealth Literature (Oxford), Studi danteschi (Florence), Durham University Journal (Durham), Arcadia (Berlin-New York), Revue de Litterature Comparee (Tours), Critica Letteraria (Naples), World Literature Today (Oklahoma), Neohelicon (Budapest), Awal (Paris), Cenobio (Lugano),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Published

2013-10-20

Issue

Section

Creative Writing and Arts