Migration in contemporary Maltese fiction

Abstract

This short chapter introduces a little-known national literature from a Mediterranean island-state which has had an intense experience with migration. In fact, during the 1950s and 1960s Malta had one of the highest rates of emigration in the world. At a structural level, emigration during this period was thought to be stimulated by the archipelago's narrow natural-resource base, by its very large mean family size, and by difficulties encountered in restructuring the economy away from the country's main colonial function as British naval garrison and dockyard. Most of the migration literature referred to in this chapter dates from this period of maximum mobility of the Maltese population when people were moving in large numbers not only to foreign destinations (chiefly Britain but also Australia and North America) but also internally within Malta (from rural to urban districts). The insularity of Malta - both of the island itself and of individual rural communities within it - is a characteristic which also infuses some of this literature, and conditions the experiences and perceptions of the migrants themselves. This insularity - in particular the isolation of self - can hardly be quantified, but is a recurring theme in Maltese literature, as we shall see.