Celebrating Dickens’s 200th birthday with new translation

Grajja ta' Zewgt Ibliet, first published in 1950, brings Dickens's classic tale of romance and revolution across two great cities - Paris and London - to the Maltese language.

SKS have re-released the volume in time for Dickens's bicentenary celebrations, with the Victorian author's 200th birthday falling on February 7 of this year.

A Tale of Two Cities is a novel set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution (1789-1799). Since its first publication in serialised form in 1859, over 200 million copies have been sold worldwide in more than 35 languages. The novel ranks among the most famous works in the history of literature.

The novel is a fine example of Dickens's socially conscious fictional works, which expose corruption and class injustice. It is also the only novel in Dickens's extensive oeuvre that is a period piece, since most of his famous works - including Oliver Twist and Great Expectations - are set in the Victorian London he lived, worked in and, through his work, helped define for future generations.

The narrative is sympathetic to the overthrow of the French aristocracy but highly critical of the reign of terror that followed. Dickens characterises the men and women who populate A Tale of Two Cities less by what the book's narrator or the characters themselves say, and more by what they do. As a result, the novel seems somewhat modern, despite being set in the 18th century and written in the 19th century. Dickens was born in Portsmouth on February 7, 1812. When he died in 1870, at the age of 58, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.

Karmenu Vassallo (1913-1987) recounted  that it was John Muscat, the owner of Giov. Muscat, who on 7 February 1948 had asked him to translate Dickens's classic into Maltese. Vassallo accepted this invitation, and worked day and night on this translation. It took Vassallo 31 laborious months - between February 1948 and September 1950 - to finish and polish this translation which was then published for the first time a few weeks later by Giov. Muscat.            

Vassallo was a poet, journalist and politician. He served in the Council of Government between 1945-46, representing the Labour Party, and contested the 1971 election with the Labour Party.

Grajja ta' Zewgt Ibliet is a Publication by SKS, the Labour Party's publishing house. The publication of the book comes in light of other events celebrating the life and work of Charles Dickens in Malta, namely an ongoing screening of Dickens film adaptations at St James Cavalier, a British Council tour exploring the link between Dickens and a Maltese seaman, and a tribute to the writer by local writers and artists on the online publication Schlock Magazine.