Author Karl Schembri won the best novel prize at the National Book Prize for Eħlisna mid-Deni, a novel rooted in his family’s experience of clerical sexual abuse.
In his acceptance speech, Schembri called for a public, independent inquiry into clerical abuse in Malta. He said the Church had known for decades that children were being abused, had allowed it to continue and had covered it up.
“To this day, Malta has never had a public, independent inquiry into this,” he said.
The novel follows a man who kidnaps a revered elderly priest and forces him to listen to his life story. Schembri has said it draws on his father’s sexual abuse by a priest during childhood. His father later developed severe mental illness and killed Schembri’s mother.
Schembri dedicated the award to victims of clerical abuse and to “all those who were humiliated and silenced by the Church, by the State, and even by our courts”.
“Because the courts, when all is said and done, administer the law, not justice,” he said. He expressed hope that the novel would help people whose voices had been silenced to speak out.
He also dedicated the prize to his parents and his sister Katia, who lived through the events behind the novel with him. Schembri thanked Merlin Publishers, publisher Chris Gruppetta, editor Clare Azzopardi and others who supported his writing during what he described as the darkest moments of the journey.
Paying tribute to the late writer Mario Azzopardi (Il-Mulej), whom he called his “intellectual father”, Schembri recalled his encouragement: “Write, Karl, for God’s sake, write.”
Schembri closed by reaffirming his “absolute faith in literature”, calling it “a powerful weapon of justice”.
Eħlisna mid-Deni was shortlisted alongside M.J. Camilleri’s Sunset Exiles, David Aloisio’s Fis-sema hekkda fl-art and Daniel Schembri’s Kult.
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