A Death in Malta by Paul Caruana Galizia

A journalist’s spellbinding account of the shocking murder of his muckraking mother and a quest for justice that has reverberated far beyond their tiny homeland

An archipelago off the southern coast of Italy, Malta is a country of contradictions, a picturesque gem eroded by a climate of extreme corruption, polarization, and inequality, and a virtual absence of civic spirit. In this unpromising soil, a fearless journalist took root. Daphne Caruana Galizia fashioned herself into the country’s lonely voice of conscience, her outspoken writing and commentary sending shock waves that threatened to topple those in power and made her at once the island’s best-known figure and its most reviled. In 2017, the campaign of intimidation against her culminated in a car-bombing that took her life.

Daphne was also the devoted and inspiring mother to three sons. Rivetingly narrated by the youngest of them, the award-winning journalist Paul Caruana Galizia, this is at once a portrait in courage and the unforgettable story of a family’s crusade for accountability in a society built on lies.

Story Locale: Malta

Paul Caruana Galizia became a journalist after his mother was assassinated and has won a British Journalism Award and multiple other honors for his reporting. With his brothers, he has received a Magnitsky Human Rights Award and an Anderson-Norman-Lucas Award for campaigning to achieve justice for Daphne.

Author Residence: London, UK

Author Hometown: Malta