On the Costa Brava, one of its inland towns has reinvented itself to become the first booktown or book village in Catalonia. Calonge has decided to reverse the depopulation that was extinguishing its old town by betting on opening, all at once, seven bookstores. All of them are ready for their first Sant Jordi, with the luck that it falls on a Saturday and that they are the main literary novelty of the season. We just have to hope that the weather doesn't spoil the party.
La Viatgeria, Llibooks, Orient, Cocollona, Libelista Calonge, Rals Llibres and Calonge Còmics are the seven projects that have arrived in this municipality, located very close to each other, on a route that extends between two streets and the main square. Two are generalist ---Libelista Calonge and Rals Llibres--- and the rest are specialized in topics such as travel, children's literature, the oriental world, esotericism or comics.
The idea of turning Calonge into a book village had been pursuing its Culture councilor, Norbert Botella, for some time. Ten years ago, he discovered this cultural initiative in a town in France, where there is more tradition, and it stayed in his head. Although he is a Literature professor, he ended up in politics, where he was able to materialize this project, in which the council has invested about 110,000 euros, destined to make reforms in the premises and buy furniture. New actions are already planned, such as decorating the urban core to further set the mood for the booktown and creating a route, one of its current shortcomings.
With that small investment, life has been given to a center that had been left without commerce and 15 inhabitants, the booksellers, who have settled in this municipality of Baix Empordà, have been added. This is the case of Meritxell Ral, from Rals Llibres. She arrived in Calonge after years working at La Central in Barcelona and the last ones, with the pandemic in between, at Ona Llibres. "I've been a bookseller for half my life, but I needed a change, I wanted to have my own bookstore," she says.
Then there's those who come from further away, like Belén Vieyra, from Libelista Calonge, who arrived from Madrid, thus making her debut in the bookselling world after dedicating herself to accounting and reading and writing in her free time. "I moved six months ago and, when I arrived, I didn't know where I was going to sleep. Quite an adventure, like a movie," explains Vieyra, who was tired of big cities and has found in this small town a place to live accompanied, rejecting, for the moment, the possibility of returning to the city where she grew up.
Eager for Sant Jordi
Since last December 10, the seven bookstores have been open and, coinciding with the Christmas campaign, they had a very good reception for their inauguration, according to the two generalist establishments. January and February are always tough for the bookselling world, as has also been seen in Calonge, but Ral points out that these first months have served to make themselves known to the local public, beginning to consolidate a fixed clientele.
With weekdays passing more quietly, the booktown has also benefited from the family tourism that has visited them on weekends. Proof of this has been Holy Week, enlivened by the medieval fair set up in Calonge, with some booksellers, already completely integrated, dressed in costumes and dresses to match the occasion.
Now, they are prepared for their first Sant Jordi. "We've been opening boxes and resolving orders for a month. There's so much anticipation... We want to do it twice as well," defends Vieyra, for whom it is her first April 23 behind the counter, but who already knew it from having visited the stalls on La Rambla.
"We've been opening boxes and resolving orders for a month. There's so much anticipation... We want to do it twice as well," defends Vieyra, for whom it is her first April 23 behind the counterThe book village has thrown itself into this celebration, which is meant to kick off its season. From the town hall, multiple activities have been programmed, extending from Thursday to Sunday. The main day, Sant Jordi's Day, features book and rose stalls, author signings, talks and discussions, itinerant music, circus and dance...There is also a concert by El Pot Petit, a phenomenon for the little ones. For the day after, a route of recommendations designed by Màrius Serra has been planned, which will stop at each bookstore to choose a book.
Beyond April 23, Calonge is working to continue culturally revitalizing the municipality, wanting to bring writers like Paul Auster. "We will try, we are not shy," says Botella. They will organize a comic fair for Sant Joan and an exhibition of Tintin ---in Calonge Cómics they have the chest with all the issues---, since it turns out that the president of Tintinaires de Catalunya is a neighbor. They also plan a booksellers' congress in November.
Literary menus to accompany
But in Calonge, it's not all bookstores. The city council wanted to extend the initiative to other businesses, proposing to restaurants to create their literary menus. Between La Rals and La Libelista, there is Can Muni, which offers roasted apples with anchovies as a first course and black rice as a second course, inspired by The Art of Eating in Catalonia by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. A close and attentive treatment rounds off a day among books, accompanied by farmer's wine made on a farm in the same municipality with old methods. It is recommended to book and go without rushing.