Klabb Kotba Maltin’s Pawlu Mizzi resigns from Book Council
Karl Schembri
The founder of Klabb Kotba Maltin, Pawlu Mizzi, has resigned from the National Book Council in protest at the way the National Book Award was organised this year.
A long-standing member on the book council who is widely respected for his lifelong commitment to the Maltese book publishing industry, Mizzi tendered his resignation last week after the book awards were made public.
Last Sunday, MaltaToday revealed that Frans Sammut was one of the judges on the category that awarded his own son for having edited a book of stories by Ġużè Bonnici. He also awarded a translation of his own novel, Il-Ħolma Maltija, to Esperanto.
“He resigned for the way it was organised,” Mizzi’s son, Joseph, said yesterday when contacted. “This year’s awards were full of problems. Frans Sammut’s conflict of interest was the last straw. The book award needs a radical overhaul.”
The National Book Council, chaired by Ġorġ Mallia, came under unprecedented attack this year from authors, critics and book publishers who lambasted the award criteria through which Bonnici’s book of stories won first prize, even though the author has been dead for 70 years.
Published by l-Għaqda tal-Malti and edited by Sammut’s son, the book was allowed to compete for first prize in fiction. Trevor Zahra came second with Sepja.
Sammut’s name as member of the jury only came out after MaltaToday and sister paper Illum requested the jurors’ list after it was strangely kept unpublished this year.
Meanwhile MaltaToday is informed that Sammut went knocking on the door of Mallia’s private residence on Sunday, after reading the reports about his conflict of interest. Mallia however was abroad and Sammut is said to have “behaved cordially”.
Another judge, Immanuel Mifsud, said he was against Bonnici’s book being allowed to contest. He also said that he could not grade the translation of Sammut’s novel as he did not know Esperanto.
Literary critic Mario Cassar, who was one of the jurors entrusted with the evaluation of the books submitted for the award, said he also was against Bonnici’s collection of short stories being eligible for the award, although his opinion went unheeded.
Defending his council, Mallia said the Book Award had been a work in progress since its inception.
“We have never said no to valid suggestions, and whenever we have found that complaints have been justified in one way or another, we have acted to make sure that the instigation of the complaint is removed,” Mallia said. “Of course the Council avoids taking into consideration temper tantrums that explode after each and every prize by some interested party or other. We consider only serious complaints, and ones that are made through the right channels. We are trying to instil, wherever possible, an atmosphere of professional maturity, that is often belied by people who either win or else. Of course we also make mistakes. Who doesn’t? But we admit to them whenever they prove to be so, and do our best to eliminate the reason for them from then on.”
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