A bilingual version of MARLBORO MAN, M. G. Sanchez’s recently published novel about the tobacco smuggling years, was launched yesterday at an online event hosted by the University of California, Davis.

The event was organised by Dr Robert Newcomb, a US academic from the university’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese who is researching and writing about Gibraltarian Literature.

Believed to be the first Gibraltarian book written with a bilingual readership in mind, MARLBORO MAN: BILINGUAL EDITION contains dialogue in llanito as well as a bilingual glossary.

Explains the novel’s author: “One of the problems I had with Marlboro Man was that I was writing in English about the sort of people who (for the most part) would have spoken only in Gibraltarian Spanish. I tried all kinds of strategies to get around this problem, but none of them seemed completely satisfactory to me. In the end I decided that I needed to have TWO texts – an anglophone edition aimed at the general reader – which I’ve already brought out – and a bilingual edition for those conversant with both English and Spanish.’

‘For me having a bilingual llanito edition was very important,’ he adds. ‘First, because llanito is a part of our Gibraltarian heritage that is rarely given the respect that it deserves. Second, because I wanted the novel to reflect as accurately as possible what things were like in the Gibraltar of the 80s and 90s.’

MARLBORO MAN: BILINGUAL EDITION can be purchased from Amazon on this link: https://amzn.to/3Q7smqu