Gibraltarian author M. G. Sanchez has released a new version of his book LOWLIFE TALES aimed at English readers after the book appeared in a ‘Llanito dialogue’ version last month.     

All the stories included in the ‘Llanito dialogue’ version appear in the English-only edition, except for the final story ‘Toni Metetrola’ which has been replaced by a new, specially written piece entitled ‘The Return of the Native.’

Explains the author: “ ‘Toni Metetrola’ relied so heavily on code-switched dialogue that it proved impossible for it to be rendered into a monolingual English version, so I replaced it with ‘The Return of the Native’, a new story about a Gibraltarian who returns to the Rock after forty years abroad and is struck by how much everything has changed around him – from the new buildings to the lack of a British military presence to the fact that most young people nowadays only speak in English….”

Featuring 11 stories and running to around 380 pages (360 pages for the English edition), Lowlife Tales tackles themes such as cultural identity, nationalism, Britishness, relations between Spain and Gibraltar, language loss, crime, life in the margins and other of the topics that have traditionally interested Sanchez as a writer.

The book has already been reviewed in the well-known academic journal Nexus, where it was described as a collection of “magnificent tales [with] profoundly universal” themes. “I would rather not reveal the endings,” the reviewer Isabel Alonso-Breto writes, “but I do want to emphasize that in every case the final twists with which Sanchez brings his Lowlife Tales to a close are surprising and masterful.”

The two versions of Sanchez’s new book are available on Amazon on the following links:

Bilingual version 

English version