Gattaldo

In a note at the end of this book, the author explains that he wanted to share the story of his friend Daphne, a journalist dedicated to rooting out malfeasance who was murdered in 2017. He observes:

“Daphne Caruana Galizia’s story is important for us all. At a time when even governments put out fake news, she stands out as someone who refused to be silenced, uncovering organized crime, money laundering, and political corruption.”

Daphne was born in 1964 in Malta, the island country in the European Union which is the world’s tenth smallest country in area but the fourth most densely populated sovereign country. She became a journalist dedicated to uncovering wrongdoing in her country. For this she was intimidated, threatened, hassled on the streets, and her pet dog was even killed. She did not back down: “The more they tried, the stronger she felt.” [Who “they” are is left ambiguous.]

After recounting a series of somewhat vague vignettes in which Daphne is shown with a love for learning, and in which she is attacked but keeps reporting, the author ends by observing that “Daphne’s writing traveled the world and inspired more and more people to speak out. Daphne had persuaded others to continue her work and make our world a better place.”

An Afterword gives more background on Daphne’s life, but doesn’t really go into the subjects of her journalism that aroused such ire. It does say in the back matter but not in the text that on October 16, 2017, Daphne was killed by a bomb placed under her car. The author suggests that this martyrdom only made Daphne’s work better known.

The Global Organized Crime Index notes that Malta’s location between Africa, Asia and Europe makes it attractive to foreign organized crime networks, and foreign groups are embedded in most Maltese criminal markets.

An article in Wikipedia sheds more light on Galizia’s journalism. There we learn Daphne focused on, inter alia, links between Malta's online gambling industry and organized crime, and Malta's citizenship-by-investment scheme involving payments from the government of Azerbaijan. In 2016 and 2017, she exposed sensitive information relating to a number of Maltese politicians and the Panama Papers scandal. [The Panama Papers revealed damaging personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials that had previously been secret. Many of those named had links to Russian intelligence, and/or were implicated in the use of shell corporations for illegal purposes, including fraud, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.]

We also learn from Wikipedia (but not from the book) that in April 2018, an international consortium of 45 journalists published The Daphne Project, a collaboration to complete her investigative work. The GUE/NGL Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers & Defenders of the Right to Information was established in 2018 in honor of Galizia.

Gattaldo, the illustrator as well as the author, uses watercolors to portrays Daphne in color while most others are in black and white, effectively emphasizing her uniqueness and impact on the world around her. Actual pictures of Daphne and her family are in the back matter.

Evaluation: The recommended age group of 7 and over will no doubt have many questions about what exactly Daphne did, since it is never explicitly delineated. They will also not even realize when she lived or how she died without reading the back notes. The author wants to pay tribute to his friend and her bravery, as well as to the perils and possibilities of journalism. The text is so devoid of specifics, however, that unless adults use this as a basis for encouraging children to do further research, it would seem not to do justice to either. However, this book makes a good starting point to get kids interested in the possibilities of journalism in general and the life of Galizia in particular. In a "meta" way, the lack of details can offer a useful lesson on how to use available resources to dig deeper to uncover a story. Moreover, the book may serve as an introduction to the country of Malta, and the subject of how geography can have political repercussions.

In fact, many of the subjects raised in this book are analogous to the current situation in Ukraine, and may enhance discussions about finding out the truth in dangerous situations, and living in a country so affected by its neighbors.… (més)