What a week!

Guzé Stagno aims to start a new literary movement with his first novel Nbid ta’ Kuljum. So will it make him famous? Interview by Zillah Bugeja

As regards reading as a hobby, what can you read in Maltese? Most novels are detached from everyday life.

My novel Nbid ta’ Kuljum was written when I was in sixth form. In Maltese literature there are a lot of historical novels and the so-called sociological, stories about life in the slums, but nothing really happens in them. I read a lot, and I’d have liked to read in Maltese but there was nothing to hold my attention. I thought I might as well write one myself.

At sixth form I started writing, and that’s when I started reading magazines like Loaded and FHM, they are what had an impact on me. I hate stuff like Rushdie, I don’t like surgical realism. At the time I was taken by patriotic stuff, I had the idea of writing some cult novel that’d be revered for years later. My short stories were published in a Maltese newspaper. I still do when an idea pops into my mind. It was twisted, people getting killed and stuff like that, not your usual short stories. I got to know this Maltese poet Charles Flores, and he was the one who accepted my commissions in the L-Orizzont.

The time came for some auto-criticism, I do that to other people’s stuff so it’s the time to get back to my desk and see what I’m doing.

In Maltese the only author worth reading is Trevor Zahra, he’s like my mentor, and was kind enough to write the blurb for my book. He’s the only author who writes popular, not populist stuff, you can get into him, he’s never shunned experimentation. I’m no purist in Maltese, and my spelling isn’t that great either. Good job my publisher has an MA in Maltese. I’m kind of like a naïve author.

In the late 90s I just wrote for my pleasure, always had the idea that I’d be taking the Maltese literary establishment by storm some day, wondering why nobody has done anything like this before. I’m called Joseph but I call myself Guzé (with an accent) because there are so many authors called Guzé that I thought it would be a good joke: people will think mine is a historical novel too and buy it for that reason. But they’ll enjoy it anyway.

Literature should be entertaining, not all of this heavy social criticism stuff. Most of my favourite books are by UK authors. In the first two lines of "L’Etranger’ by Camus, he says, ‘Mother died today, or was it yesterday.’ That says to me that writing doesn’t have to be moral. In late 1998 I read an article in Sunday Circle about women in relationships with married men and the loneliness they felt at Christmas. It was taken from their point of view, and I like that, that’s kind of cool. I was in a bad state of mind and wrote the book all in one go.

It’s quite a slim book, less than 100 pages, and is what I needed to say at the time. I left it in a drawer, because the difficult part is finding a publisher, and I was only 21 then. In the meantime I was busy in a relationship, and I don’t write when I am in a relationship. You don’t have that drive to be famous.

In the mid-90s I was with Moviment Graffit and met Mark my publisher at Minima Publishing, but recently had lost touch. We wanted to do some good marketing so that it can go places, maybe portray the writer as pop star, the Robbie Williams of Maltese literature, but I’m not going to drop my pants for the cameras. We could have had my face on a billboard, but there’s plenty of time. We didn’t have a book launch because then only those in the scene would have attended. It’s Joe Public who’s going to buy it.

Ever since I was a teenager I only wanted two things: having sex and being published. Now that I’m over 21 I’ve done both and the next hurdle is to prevent getting complacent. So I’m writing my second. You’re not going to change things overnight with just one book. I’ll be happy if we sell this current edition and have to run to the printing press to get the next one off.

If the guys on the Matsec editorial board put it on the A level syllabus, that would help a great deal. This idea started as a joke, but it does help authors sell copies. All the major authors have had their work on some syllabus or another, why not mine? Maybe they won’t like the language I’ve used, I think it’s time that certain words were used. Nor is the protagonist your usual morally sound character – he is addicted to pills and all that stuff. I don’t think it’s gong to have a negative influence on kids, I’ve never done what I’ve read about.

It is 70% autobiographical though. My father was reading it this week and said, how many things have you written about us? I think all art must be self-referential. It was like some sort of catharsis, good therapy, but I’m not saying which parts are me. I’d have loved to say that having the book published has made a big difference to my life. I did it as therapy and to be famous.

I work at Maltacom, I’m a pen pusher, a clerk in the secretarial department. I get up at 5.30am to start work at 7am, but we finish at 3.30pm so that’s good. We’ve just relocated to near the SPCA, starting work next to the sound and smell of the dogs isn’t that great. I’ve got nice colleagues and all that so I’m quite happy with my lot. My brain’s always on the go.

I once spent a week doing communications at university. I got bored, thinking: ‘When were they going to show us Bride of Frankenstein? Jesus and John Lennon didn’t go to university, so what am I doing here?’ I spent a whole year unemployed, kind of like Trainspotting without the drugs.

I’ve just turned 25, when somebody asks me my age I still think 23, haven’t got used to being in the middle of my 20s. I don’t think I’ve ever felt young.

I enjoy reading magazines, I’m addicted to them and to double cheeseburgers, which is why I’ve become a health freak, after having troubles with my high blood pressure. I don’t want to be put on pills, so I’ve got my act together and started eating for real. It’s only okay to have a paunch if you’re in a relationship and getting regular sex.

Right now I’m happily single. I can live without writing but if I’m good at it might make me famous. I’d rather be writing right now that being in a relationship, there’s plenty of time for these things.