M. G. Sanchez

M. G. Sanchez is a Gibraltarian writer. He has written over a dozen books, all of which broach the subject of Gibraltarian identity. Articles about Sanchez's work have appeared in a number of European university journals, including British and American Studies,[1] Il Tolomeo,[2] ES Review,[3] Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies, [4] the Kervan International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies,[5] the International Journal of Iberian Studies,[6] the Open Library of Humanities,[7] as well as in books such as Ritorno a Babele: esercizi di globalizzazione[8] and (Post)Colonial Passages: Incursions and Excursion Across the Literatures and Cultures in English.[9]

M. G. Sanchez

Sanchez has spoken about his books at different European university venues, including the University of Salamanca,[10] the University of Turin,[11] the University of the Balearic Islands,[12][13] the University of Portsmouth,[14] the University of Strasbourg,[15] the University of Barcelona,[16] the University of Northumbria,[17] the University of Lisbon,[18] the University of Gibraltar,[19] King's College London,[20] and the University of Basel,[21] for which he wrote a special autobiographical piece entitled 'Fifty Years of Unbelonging.'[22] He also took part in the 2017 Gibraltar International Literary Festival, delivering a talk entitled 'Representing Gibraltarianness,'[23] and in the 2018 version of the event, where he gave a talk about his book Bombay Journal.[24] Writing in the well-known British publication the New Statesman in early 2015, Sanchez stated that his intention as a writer and speaker was "to present a Gibraltar that feels more real and more tangible than the “contested territory” cliché that readers so often encounter in newspaper editorials."[25]

Sanchez has also taken part in various radio programmes, including ABC's Late Night Live [26] with veteran broadcaster Phillip Adams, the BBC World Service's The Cultural Frontline with Tina Daheley[27] and Antena Caro's Lletres Ebrenques with Emigdi Subirats i Sebastià.[28]

His book Past: A Memoir (2016), relates the hardships his family endured during the Gibraltarian border crisis of 2013 and also describes a walk which Sanchez undertook in Gibraltar's Upper Town Area in the company of the British Historian Nicholas Rankin.

Sanchez holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Leeds.[29]

He maintains a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/mgsanchezwriter.

List of books

Rock of Empire (2001)

Rock Black: Ten Gibraltarian Stories (2006)

Writing the Rock of Gibraltar: An Anthology of Literary Texts, 1720-1890 (2006)

The Prostitutes of Serruya's Lane and other Hidden Histories (2007)

Diary of a Victorian Colonial and other Tales (2008)

Georgian and Victorian Gibraltar: Incredible Eyewitness Accounts (2012)

The Escape Artist (2013)

Solitude House (2015)

Jonathan Gallardo (2015)

Past: A Memoir (2016)

Bombay Journal (2018)

Crossed Lines (2019)

Border Control and other Autobiographical Pieces (2019)

Gooseman (2020)

Critical bibliography

Sarah M. Abas, 'M. G. Sanchez: an Interview,' ES Review 39, 2018, pp. 319-330.

Esterino Adami, ‘La Rocca di Babele: narrazioni e trasformazioni linguistiche in M. G. Sanchez,' Ritorno a Babele: prove di globalizzazione (Turin: Neos Terrenia, 2013), pp. 71-81.

Esterino Adami, ‘An Interview with Gibraltarian author M. G. Sanchez followed by a review of The Escape Artist,' Il Tolomeo 13, 2013, pp. 29-36.

Esterino Adami, ‘Recensione di Jonathan Gallardo,’ Il Tolomeo 18, 2016, pp. 233-35.

Esterino Adami, ‘Recensione di Solitude House,’ Il Tolomeo, 17, 2015, pp. 185-187.

Esterino Adami, ‘A Passage to Gibraltar: Alterity and Representation in M. G. Sanchez,’ Postcolonial Passages: incursions and excursions across the literatures and cultures in English (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018), pp. 204–214.

Isabel Alonso Breto, 'Review of Border Control and other Autobiographical Pieces,' Complutense Journal of English Studies, 28, 2020, pp. 229-231.

Rebecca Gabay, 'M. G. Sanchez’s Bombay Journal: Redressing the Past from the Colonial Present,' Kervan International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies, 22, 2018, pp. 291-294.

Amanda Gerke, ‘Discursive Boundaries: Code-Switching as Representative of Gibraltarian Identity Construction in M. G. Sanchez's Rock Black,’ Miscelánea 57, 2018 pp. 35-57.

Ina Habermann, 'British-European Entanglements: M.G. Sanchez's The Escape Artist and the Case of Gibraltar,' Journal for Literary and Intermedial Crossings 2, 2018, pp. b1-20.

Ina Habermann, 'Gibraltarian Hauntologies: Spectres of Colonialism in the Fiction of M. G. Sanchez', Open Library of Humanities, 6(1), 2020, p.19.

Ana Maria Manzanas Calvo, 'The Line and the Limit of Britishness: The Construction of Gibraltarian Identity in M. G. Sanchez’s Writing,’ ES Review 38, 2017, pp. 27-45.

Robert Patrick Newcomb, 'Review of Border Control and Other Autobiographical Pieces', International Journal of Iberian Studies, 33, 1, 1 2020, pp. 107-108.

Elena Seoane, 'Telling the true Gibraltarian Story: an interview with Gibraltarian writer M. G. Sanchez,' Alicante Journal of English Studies 29, 2016, pp. 251-258

John A. Stotesbury, 'Mediterranean Gothic: M. G. Sanchez’s Gibraltar Fiction in its Context,’ British and American Studies 21, 2016, pp. 156-172.