The boy from the Bastjun

Dom Mintoff: Mintoff, Malta, Mediterra. My Youth The Association for Equality, Justice and Peace, in collaboration with the National Archives of Malta, 2018.

Love him or hate him, and really there is hardly any middle way, Dom Mintoff was one of the most important figures to thrust his forceful way onto Malta’s political stage in the 20th century.

His radical socialist policies were indeed most necessary to introduce much-needed and much-delayed social reforms in an extremely traditionalist society but they invariably raised the hackles of those who were comfortably well-off, in terms of power or money, or both.

But then, being a fiery character with a dynamic personality, he also had the unfortunate penchant for surrounding himself with supple-backed individuals (or rather the proclivity of getting rid of those with harder spines) which often led him into extreme positions, for few had the guts to openly oppose his ideas.

This autobiography, always keeping in mind all the usual caveats in dealing with someone explaining their life, provides an excellent insight into Mintoff’s youth and the formative influences that led to a bright mischievous boy from one of Cospicua’s poorer...