No need to start at the beginning – Sant’s new novel can be read ‘like a dictionary’

Alfred Sant’s Bhal f`Dizzjunarju/As in a Dictionary was launched at the Malta National Bookfair, during a literary programme which included readings from various parts of the novel by actors Jane Marshall, Lino Farrugia and Anthony Ellul and a discussion on the novel chaired by Albert Marshall with the participation of Magistrate Joe Cassar, Walid Nabhan, Mark Camilleri and Dorothy Scerri.

Hundreds of readers and book lovers attended the literary session and had the novel signed by the author, who was present throughout the session.

Bhal f`Dizzjunarju is SKS’s latest publication to be launched during this year’s edition of the Book Fair, which was held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre. The publishers have reported more sales than anticipated of Sant`s latest novel.

Bħal f’Dizzjunarju follows the life and career of Anġlu Debono during the past forty years. The reader is by his side during some of the most disturbing episodes of his childhood. With him,  the reader tramps through crowds of noisy people getting drunk, band music and a blistering sun during a morning festa parade in the middle of summer. There are career and family problems… and with Debono, the reader remembers or gets to know some of the developments in Malta since Independence… but this happens on the side and quietly, for Debono always preferred to stay away from polemics. All he wanted to do was to live life his way, while spending time and devoting himself to his main pursuit – writing.

Bħal f’Dizzjunarju/As in a Dictionary is the first novel in Maltese that can be read in any order, so that one can start it and continue reading at any point. Whether one takes it up at the opening or at midpoint will make no difference when following the storyline.

For as indicated by its title, the novel hitches the life of the main character Anġlu Debono to a breathless carousel of memories and episodes placed one after the other in a sequence like they were coming out of a dictionary.