Foreword [Survivors II]

Abstract

We too were bonny – once. It’s a rare thing not to have been bonny – once. - Samuel Beckett, Endgame: A Play in One Act (1957) As I go through Joe Smith’s poignant tableaux in this remarkable second edition of a record to those who have pulled through life’s toil and whose shared commonality is the mere fact that they happen to hail from this small but proud city in Malta’s south, I cannot but stop to ponder on a series of conflicting notions summoned by life’s own quirks and quiddities. Such strange chance occurrances with these images I find somewhat intimidating and pretty apprehensive, however also absolutely intriguing as, like an aftertaste, they linger in my mind’s conscience every time I exit the page of one survivor in order to discover that of another.