Something Rotten in the State of Gibraltar: M. G. Sanchez’s Autobiographical Explorations of Borderlands

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is concerned with Gibraltar as a hybrid borderland in M. G. Sanchez’s autobiographical works. Sanchez grew up in Gibraltar during the border closure in the 1970s and now lives in England, having traveled widely and lived for some years in Japan and India. A British Gibraltarian writer and in some ways a “nomadic subject,” Sanchez keeps close ties with Gibraltar, where he has family and friends, visiting regularly and taking an active part in Gibraltarian cultural and political debates. In his work, Sanchez explores the palimpsestic quality of Gibraltarian culture, registering the changes in his birthplace while also attending to the traces of the past, the memories and the residue of a colonial culture. In particular, Sanchez sees Gibraltar as a borderscape and a culturally hybrid place preoccupied with borderlines. This article argues that with his approach to writing Gibraltar, Sanchez makes an important contribution to Gibraltar’s current negotiation of identity in times of Brexit.