Joe Friggieri Donates Lifetime of Books to Gozo, Creating New Literary Haven

# Literary Giant Joe Friggieri Gifts Gozo a Living Library

**Gozo’s Regional Council chamber felt more like a literary salon on Tuesday morning when Prof. Joe Friggieri – poet, playwright, philosopher and former Labour minister – arrived carrying not briefing papers but a crate of his own published works. The donation, 136 titles spanning four decades of Maltese letters, will form the seed of a new public reference collection housed inside the Citadel’s historic law courts building, a short stroll from where Friggieri was born in Rabat 74 years ago.**

Council Chairperson Samuel Azzopardi accepted the books with visible emotion, noting that “for Gozo to keep giving birth to stories, we must first surround ourselves with them.” The remark struck a chord in a room filled with local librarians, secondary-school teachers and pensioners who still remember Friggieri’s early poems in *Leħen il-Malti*. Among them was 82-year-old Ġorġina Saliba, who whispered that she once queued outside the old Citadel printing press in 1971 for a signed copy of *Frammenti*, the poet’s debut collection. “Back then we felt Gozo was too small for big dreams,” she said, holding the same slim volume now yellowed at the edges. “Joe proved us wrong.”

Friggieri’s gift is not a routine celebrity hand-off. The haul includes out-of-print plays such as *Żewġ Saltniet* (1983), philosophical essays on Maltese identity, and the entire *Poeżiji* trilogy whose ISBN numbers are no longer listed even at the National Library in Valletta. “Some of these were rescued from my mother’s garage in Xewkija,” the author laughed, pulling out a first-edition *Fjuri li ma Jinxfux* whose cover still bears a 10c Melita stamp. “Books need air, not mothballs.”

Cultural heritage officer Ritienne Xerri, tasked with cataloguing the donation, says the timing is perfect. Gozo’s public libraries recorded a 22 % spike in loans last year, driven partly by EU-funded reading schemes and a post-pandemic hunger for “tangible pages”. Yet the sister island still lacks a dedicated Maltese literature corner where researchers can browse local authors without crossing the channel. “These shelves will plug that gap,” Xerri explained, gesturing toward a restored 18th-century courtroom whose oak panels still smell of beeswax. Plans are afoot to digitise marginalia and dedicate one wing to Gozitan writers, turning the space into what Azzopardi calls “a living archive rather than a mausoleum”.

The donation also lands amid renewed debate about the Maltese language itself. Earlier this year, a University of Malta survey found that 64 % of Gozitan youths prefer consuming news in English, fuelling fears of gradual language shift. Friggieri, who chaired the National Council for the Maltese Language between 2005 and 2013, sees the library as a quiet rebuttal. “Identity isn’t a flag you wave once a year on Sette Giugno,” he told *Hot Malta*. “It’s the stories you tell when no one is watching.” By placing those stories within walking distance of every Gozitan school, the council hopes to normalise reading in Maltese as an everyday pleasure rather than a homework chore.

Local publishers are already circling. Horizons chairman Mark Camilleri attended the hand-over and announced that his house will match Friggieri’s donation with 50 contemporary Maltese titles, ensuring the collection is not a nostalgia trap. “We need yesterday’s classics alongside today’s TikTok generation poets,” Camilleri argued, name-checking writers like Lara Calleja and Immanuel Mifsud whose works will join Friggieri’s on the same pine shelves.

For everyday Gozitans, the impact is immediate. Carmen Spiteri, who runs a kiosk outside the Citadel gates, predicts an uptick in grandmothers buying *pastizzi* for kids on Saturday library runs. “More feet means more receipts,” she shrugged, already pricing pocket dictionaries to place next to the chewing gum. Meanwhile, Gozo High School teacher Dorianne Farrugia is planning a creative-writing field trip before Easter. “Students always ask where they can find Friggieri’s *Żmien il-Ktieb* outside exam season,” she said. “Now I can say: take the number 301, climb the hill, open the door.”

As the ceremony wound down, Friggieri posed for photos beneath a vaulted ceiling that once echoed with criminal sentences. Asked how it felt to see his life’s work parked beneath a 17th-century coat of arms, the professor replied with a line from his own 1995 poem *Il-Ġebla*: “*Jekk il-kelma tibqa’ ħajja, il-belt ma tmutx.*” If the word stays alive, the city never dies. On Tuesday, Gozo checked out that promise for good.