How many female Maltese authors do you think are included in the 2023 syllabus?

The answer is two, among the 21 males authors.

Twelve years ago, no female authors were included in Matsec’s O’ level syllabus.

This number has been upped to six female authors in the 2025 syllabus and although this is a step in the right direction, it certainly isn’t bridging the gap between the number of male authors (16) and female ones. 

Among the six women is Malta’s first poet laureate Maria Grech Ganado as well as award-winning author Clare Azzopardi and other laudable female authors such as Loranne Vella, Rita Saliba, Simone Galea and Lillian Sciberras. 

Grech Ganado already had a poem featured in the previous syllabus, in fact, she is one out of the two women included till the syllabus changes take effect in 2025. 

Upon getting in contact with two of the aforementioned authors, it is clear that there are mixed opinions about the need for these changes, as well as simply the existence of female authors in the past as a reason for their lack of inclusion in the syllabus for the last decade or so.

Loranne Vella, author of ‘Magna Mater’, accurately explains that the Matsec syllabus “features mostly writers from the past, so it is not surprising that in the 2025 syllabus, only six of these authors are women – the Maltese literary scene in the 20th century was heavily dominated by male writers…”.

“The course is about the study of the history of literature and becomes a means of promoting respect towards these past writers. So, as usual, we find a heavy emphasis on Dun Karm’s contribution to Maltese literature, which no one ever seems to question or challenge,” she adds.

Vella continues to suggest that a “secular and feminist deconstruction” of Dun Karm’s poetry may be beneficial within the syllabus to provide a different perspective to students.

In regard to contemporary authors in the 2025 syllabus, she feels that a few have been added “for good measure”, since an exhaustive analysis of Maltese literature should certainly include contemporary works. 

However, she also believes that “so much more is currently happening in the Maltese literary scene, with not enough of this reflected in Hemm Art fil-Folja – the anthology prepared for the Matsec syllabus—and many contemporary authors have been left out.”

Vella concludes that some works by Elizabeth Grech, Leanne Ellul, Claudia Gauci, Simone Inguanez, Lara Calleja and Nadia Mifsud could have easily been incorporated into the syllabus.

“Not because of some gender quota, but because their work too is shaping our literary history. Their absence continues to generate the traditional idea that only men can write about universal subjects worth studying while women only write about women’s stuff, for recreational purposes; that men are those doing the writing while women do the reading.”