Launch of 'Women of Gibraltar: Forgotten Narratives'

The Caretaker Minister for Equality, the Hon Samantha Sacramento, launched Women of Gibraltar, Forgotten Narratives on Thursday 28th September. This book was commissioned by the Ministry of Equality to the Gibraltar Heritage Trust in 2019 and has been written in its entirety by Chief Executive of the Gibraltar Heritage Trust Claire Montado, and beautifully illustrated by the talented Beatrice Garcia. It has also been brilliantly edited by Trustees of the Gibraltar Heritage Trust, Alice Mascarenhas and Yvette Zarb, and expertly overseen by The Ministry of Equality’s Policy Development Officer, Marlene Dalli.

The innovative and ground-breaking book sheds a powerful light on the lives and accomplishments of 25 individual women who were either born here, worked in Gibraltar or passed through Gibraltar. The book aims to properly chronicle women’s contributions to Gibraltar’s history and society by recording a sample of women’s names, faces and achievements from the past, bring these into the present and secure them for the future too. Women of Gibraltar, Forgotten Narratives also traces the contribution by a number of institutions which helped to shape Gibraltarian society and effect positive and long-lasting change.

Through these profiles, which take the reader from the Neanderthal era into the 16th and up to the 21st century, the book explores the Gibraltar of their time, the values of the society they inhabited and the changing nature of life on the Rock. Women of Gibraltar, Forgotten Narratives provides a tangible register of women role models that confronts traditional narratives of our past and offers inspiration to current and future generations.

Chief Executive of the Gibraltar Heritage Trust, Claire Montado, said: ‘It has been a great privilege to be asked to undertake this piece of work and through it honour a small proportion of the women that have played in role in building the Gibraltar we know today. The book is essentially a compilation of research and writings by many others who have had the foresight to record events, anecdotes and details. Each story can be gone into in a great deal more depth, but it is hoped that this publication will function as a conversation starter or inspiration for the lives of many others to be committed to print.’

Read the Full Press Release.

This book is available to purchase for £15.00 in our gift and bookshop or on our website. A book signing event with Claire Montado will take place on Wednesday 11th October between 11am and 12pm in the Main Guard.

Launch of the book in the Garrison Library.