Human relations past and present in Joe Friggieri’s new collection of short stories

Walking into Professor Joe Friggieri’s room at the University of Malta, I was amazed by the number of wooden shelves packed with hundreds of books. Those which did not fit on a shelf were put on the floor and on every possible surface in the relatively small office. The books on his desk were positioned like skyscrapers with a tiny space in the middle taken up his new book ‘ Nismaghhom Jghidu’, a publication featuring 20 short stories.

By the time this interview went to print, I had the opportunity to read all of the 20 short stories on a Ryanair flight to Luton, which was sitting on Luton’s runway for over an hour.

Some of the stories are three pages long; others have a better build up. But somehow, despite the stories being so short, Prof. Friggieri manages to capture one’s imagination and one cannot ignore the literal poetic element in which these stories were written.

“There’s a certain rhythm to the sentences I write,” he explains, holding his book in hand.

This is not the first collection of short stories penned by Prof. Friggieri. Back in 1992 and 2007, he published the famous Steeper tar-Ronnie. As he explains, the public enjoyed the element of comic relief of this one Maltese guy facing daily, almost insignificant obstacles.

“Ronnie’s stories were well received. I think the secret was that secondary school children did not have much funny stories to read. I write poetry, but perhaps for the younger generation, poetry can be quite sad.”

He said that short stories for that particular generation were lacking in Maltese schools.

“Ronnie is an alienated character who simply cannot keep up with the pace of this world. Children laugh but at the same time, they also feel some pity.”

After L-Istejjer tar-Ronnie, Prof. Friggieri worked on the publication of ‘ Hrejjef ghal Zmienna’ – Tales of our Times. “This was my best collection of short stories from a literary point of view,” he commented.

Hrejjef ghal Zmienna was one of Prof. Friggieri’s most successful publications. In fact, the book has been translated into English, German and French.

What is so different in this latest publication of short stories?

Hrejjef ghal Zmienna was written in the style of magical realism. Stories which have an element of the real and the imag- inative. I always believe that literature should leave room for imagination. As a writer, I offer enough information but leave the rest up to the reader’s imagination. Literature allows you to imagine situations which could, or could not happen in the real world. The reader is able to expand.

[Prof. Friggieri has written short stories, poems, and scripts for theatre. However, he has so far never penned novels.]

Why do you prefer short stories?

For some reason, I feel more comfortable writing short stories. I find it more difficult to write a lengthy novel. I prefer short stories. Even my poems are relatively short. You need to be concise and weigh every word you write.

When I write short stories, I always think of the beginning and the end. The difficult part is to fill the void in the middle. Obviously, it has all the necessary elements of a normal story, with the main protagonist, storyline and so on.

This particular book includes different stories but all have different narrative strategies.

In some cases, I choose to narrate the story myself in the first person. Sometimes I let the character provide the narrative for the story, and in one particular story I chose to create the story through a one-on-one conversation.

[Prof. Friggieri was referring to the short story called Dritt ghallPunt (Straight to the Point), which is narrated through an interrogation. The story evolves only through conversation.

The first four short stories were written some time ago. But the majority, Prof Friggieri explained, were written last summer.]

I noticed that some stories carry the names of different cities in Europe. Any particular reason?

I wanted to base some of my stories abroad – Venice, Budapest, Athens and so on. These are all cities which I visited personally. I wanted to widen the horizon of the environment so that I can describe a different context.

However, some of the characters are still Maltese?

Yes. In the case of ‘Budapest’, for instance, the story is about a Maltese couple who are going to split up and they want to have their last supper together in Budapest, where they had gone for their honeymoon.

But in the case of the novella ‘ Piazza Navona’, the characters are Italian.

For me personally, human relations are an inspiring theme for these stories.

However, the one common theme which seems to persist throughout all of the 20 stories is the link between the past and present.

“The first short story, Is-Sigra (an award winning short story), tells about the presence of this tree for generations in an old house. The younger generation want to demolish the house and turn it into apartments.”

[With this in mind, he explains that the environment has served as one major inspiration throughout his stories.]

“All I want is to raise some awareness, without being a moralist. An author is not there to preach, but I feel I have to pass on a message.” [‘Is-Sigra’ is also Prof Friggieri’s favourite short story in the book.]