M. G. SanchezMarlboro Man (bilingual edition)

Although M.G Sanchez has written more than a dozen books, including novels, short stories, and memoirs, I have a suspicion that Marlboro Man will be the book that cements his place as the voice of a generation of Gibraltarians who came of age in the last few decades of the 20th century. Marlboro Man has arrived at the right time, a quarter of a century after the events it describes, and amid signs of a renewed appetite on the Rock for revisiting this controversial, but epoch-defining period of Gibraltarian history. Examining the smuggling boom years of the late 80s and early 90s through literary fiction, rather than say a conventional historical narrative, enables the author to put some distance between himself and the real people involved (many of whom are around today) but also takes the reader to places that a history book never could, inside the head of a ‘Winston Boy’ in a high speed launch on the open seas, being chased by Spanish customs officers. Those familiar with Sanchez’s previous work will recognise many of the themes he explores here: Gibraltarian society, places and faces, mental health, exile, the role of the outsider. These and more are all explored through the eyes of the narrator, Alex Pereira. Sanchez’s skill as a writer conjures up - for the uninitiated as well as those who were there at the time - the sights, sounds, smells, temptations and excesses of those heady years.