School's out for summer, and for our unnamed narrator, that means three months away from his physics high school students to tinker with his ancient Fiat 131 and fret about his all-consuming obsession: Sarah, a tempestuous artist he met online. They sleep together, they text obsessively, but as July's barbecues and boat trips segue into August's festi, their intimate moments always reset into platonic disappointment, and she increasingly ghosts him in favour of an ever-changing group of new besties. A sensation on its home island, this book gives poignant voice to a regular guy in his early thirties, trying to get a grip on love, life and growing up, and it paints a high-octane portrait of what it means to live in the hedonistic, overcrowded, workaholic, claustrophobic, contradictory mind-blast that is Malta.



RYAN FALZON, born in Malta in 1988, is a visual artist, published author and art educator. His work is often abrasive and playful, and he is known for constructing narratives by arranging disparate images and texts in a collage-like fashion. Since 2011, Falzon has published several short pieces in various publications. Sajf, the first novel by Falzon, was published in 2022 and reviews have referred to it as the voice of the Maltese millennial generation. Sajf was shortlisted for NBC 2023 National Book Prize. In 2024, Falzon was selected as a participant in the literary residencies European programme Ulysses's Shelter. In the same year, Falzon was awarded the National Prize for the Best Emergent Author.



"A powerfully idiomatic, warts-and-all vision of contemporary Malta, especially that which millennials experience."



"The only novel an author has to writ before they can retire for the rest of their lives. It captures the spirit of the times."



"Falzon's novel captures the millennial and Gen Z experience against the backdrop of a scorching Maltese summer. Vintage cars, excessive drinking and moral ambiguity frame the story."



"From the very first page, it puts you in the passenger seat and drives you at breakneck speed through every street, bypass and flyover on the island as it is today.'