News | Sunday, 21 December 2008

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Guzè Bonnici’s family fuming at book awards fiasco

Karl Schembri
The children of the late author Ġużè Bonnici, who was given this year’s National Book Award for prose, have complained about the way their father was dragged into controversy 70 years after he passed away.
Speaking to MaltaToday last week, John Bonnici, one of the author’s three children, said that not only they were not involved in the nomination of their father’s book of short stories, but that they were deeply upset by the fiasco surrounding the awards.
“I would like to set the record straight: we had no idea that our father’s stories were nominated for the awards, we weren’t invited to the awards ceremony, we weren’t even told it had won, and we only got to know it through your newspaper,” Bonnici said.
Speaking almost apologetically about the whole debacle that ensued after it emerged that Frans Sammut was one of the judges who awarded his own son for having edited the book, published by l-Għaqda tal-Malti, Bonnici added: “We’re very disappointed at what happened. We were not involved at any stage, and it wasn’t our idea to pit him in this controversy. I also have to say that as his heirs we haven’t seen one cent of the award, neither did we receive the certificate or trophy given to the winner. I won’t go into the literary merits of my father but I would have expected at least to be informed of the award as basic courtesy and ethics.”
The National Book Council 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 posthumously.
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. Writing in illum today, Frans Sammut says the money associated with the prize should go to l-Għaqda tal-Malti.
Sammut’s name as member of the jury only came out after MaltaToday and her sister paper requested the jurors’ list after it was strangely kept unpublished this year.
Meanwhile 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, 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.
“He resigned for the way it was organised,” Mizzi’s son, Joseph, said. “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.”
Another judge, Immanuel Mifsud, said he was against Bonnici’s book being allowed to contest, while literary critic Mario Cassar, who was one of the jurors entrusted with the evaluation of the books submitted for the award, also said he was against Bonnici’s collection of short stories being eligible for the award, although his opinion went unheeded.

kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt

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