/ Town Hall
Friday 3rd September 2021
"Literatura Expandida", the first cultural festival in Magaluf promoted by Rata Corner and INNSiDE by Meliá
It will bring together writers, musicians and artists from 1st to 3rd October at the INNSiDE Calviá Beach hotel in Magaluf
Irvine Welsh, Elvira Lindo, Ricardo Cavolo or Russian Red will be some of the participants in this event, which places Magaluf on the island's cultural map
Festival organisation's press release
Magaluf continues to reinvent itself with innovative proposals to attract higher quality tourism. This year, it goes one step further and will host the first “Expanded Literature” cultural festival, organised by the independent bookstore Rata Corner and the hotel brand INNSiDE by Meliá. Under the slogan "culture beyond the limits", the festival aims to bring culture closer to new audiences and, for this, writers, artists, musicians and cultural agents will meet on the INNSiDE Calvià Beach hotel rooftop, from 1st to 3rd October, where they will share their work and reflections through a wide programme of activities and cultural proposals.
The festival, which has the support of Calvià Town Hall, was born with a double objective: to vindicate the transformative role of culture and bring literature closer to new audiences with a modern, transgressive and close proposal. The poster for this first edition will include guests of local, national and international reference, such as the author of Trainspotting Irvine Welsh; artists such as Paula Bonet, Flavita Banana, María Herreros or Ricardo Cavolo; the writers Antonio Muñoz Molina, Elvira Lindo, Carlos Bardem or Bob Pop; the performer Samantha Hudson, the poets Marwan and Maria Sevilla and musicians such as Russian Red and Aina Zanoguera. In addition, more participants will be announced soon on the festival's website.
Over three days, the rooftop of the INNSiDE Calviá Beach hotel - an icon of the "new Magaluf" totally transformed, with its popular hanging pools - will be the setting for multiple talks, concerts, recitals, gastronomic experiences, book signings or live artistic interventions. In addition, there will also be a literary catamaran tour along the Calvià coast, amongst other activities.
Meliá is committed to the destination's reconversion
"The celebration of this festival is an extraordinary opportunity to place Magaluf on the island's cultural map and rediscover this fantastic destination in Mallorca, which has been totally renovated and offers much more than anyone can imagine", assured Alberto Lalinde, Managing Director Eastern Spain & Balearic Islands of Meliá Hotels International, during the presentation of the festival, today in Magaluf.
Since 2012, Meliá Hotels International has played a key role in the transformation of this holiday destination in the southwest of Mallorca, traditionally linked to drunkenness tourism, which in recent years has undergone a great change, thanks to public-private collaboration, to become a safer and more familiar and sustainable destination. After investing more than 250 million euros in the renovation of its hotels and in the creation of a new complementary offer, Meliá maintains its commitment in Magaluf and continues to promote different actions to improve the quality and image of the destination.
Rata Corner, a new way of bringing books to the public
Rata Corner is an independent bookstore in Palma that opened in 2016 and since then has been working to renew and expand the bookstore concept, offering a careful selection of books, graphics and vinyls. Rata Corner has become a cultural agitator on the island with its cultural programming, with which more than 300 activities have been organised over these years. ''Independent bookstores have reinvented themselves and become more than just bookstores. With the desire to go beyond the bookstore, ‘Expanded Literature’ was born, a multidisciplinary festival that will turn Magaluf into a meeting point for writers, musicians, artists and readers for a weekend'', remarked Miquel Ferrer, head of Rata Corner.
In 2020, Rata Corner won the Pimem award for business innovation and was a finalist of the 2020 cultural bookstore award given by CEGAL and the Ministry of Culture.
For his part, the mayor of Calvà, Alfonso Rodríguez, highlighted the importance of this type of events for the municipality. "Literature, like culture in general, has a social cohesion force that we must continue to promote for Magaluf and for all of Calvià" he stressed during the press conference, in which he also assured that it is time to "break stereotypes to vindicate our municipality as a destination for quality cultural experiences to be enjoyed by our residents and tourists”.
