The Gift of Fiction by Fr. Robert Falzon SDB was initially a dissertation for a MA degree in Spirituality. Its very beginning however started much earlier in the personal life of the author as he experienced spiritual nourishment in his engagement with fiction. In fact, the book mostly addressed the question: “How can non-religious fiction aid the spiritual growth in young adults?”
More than a book about Shakespeare and Tolkien, it is about how young adults may engage with fiction and there, find nourishment. In fact, the author does not simply theorise about his subject. Rather, he gathered data from a group of young people who engaged with the fictional texts of Shakespeare and Tolkien: not academically or in a literary analytic way, but experientially. The underlying conclusion is that when we engage with stories, even when they are made-up stories, we realise that our own life is a story. That awareness brings us to the natural consequence that we are not the only authors of our life and that our own story is part of a much larger story.
Drawing from the Biblical Scriptures and how they were originally written, this book highlights not only the importance of stories in our life, but also the continuity that there is between our inner reality and our context, and moreover the continuity between the Sacred and the secular.
“Using the storytelling genius of both Shakespeare and Tolkien, Robert Falzon has managed to engage the minds and hearts of a group of young adults to debate and synthesise the search for meaning in their lives, actual and spiritual. Their lives will be enriched by this process, as every life is enriched by the understanding of the power of metaphor, symbol, and the effect of fiction narrative upon the search for the numinous. I highly recommend this book for its originality and its exploration of the link between spirituality and story-telling in its various forms.” Polly March – Theatre maker, director and actor
“This study is an excellent exercise in youth spiritual empowerment through story-telling, not just any story, but the story of who we are at our roots. Robert Falzon treads most carefully between placing himself in the youths’ own life story while, to avoid the risk of reducing his interpretations to subjectivist musings, kneading Christian revealed theology from below through the youths’ own engagement with fiction.” Glen Attard, O.Carm. – University of Malta
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256 pages, Salesians of Don Bosco Publications Malta
