The rose that the artist Pep Llambias (Alaró, 1954) has made for ARA Balears and that will be at all the Sant Jordi stalls in Palma is not, by any means, the first one he has made. The thorn of a rose, in fact, was one of the main protagonists of the exhibition with which he filled the Llotja de Palma 20 years ago. “I am very attracted to the duality it symbolizes”, he acknowledges, and states that he has some planted in the yard of his house.

That Saint George has taken flight in recent years is a fact that is noted every April 23 in Palma. If last year two caparrots were premiered there, confirming its character as a traditional festival, this year the festival has begun almost a week earlier with a prior fair in the neighborhoods of the City. Nevertheless, the momentum of Book Day has also been felt outside Palma: throughout the Balearic Islands, numerous bookstores are preparing since February for one of the most important days of the year.

Gemma Camps (Palma, 1994) will fulfill a dream on April 24 and 25. Or close a circle. Or both at the same time. It will be then when she returns to the Teatre Principal in Palma, where she says she fell in love with opera. Now, with the commission to direct one. “I perfectly remember the first one I saw there, sitting in the stalls at 15 years old. It was La Bohème, and I knew immediately that I wanted to dedicate myself to this,” she admits. Sixteen years later, she will be in charge of the musical direction of La veu humana, a production that is part of the 40th edition of the Principal's Opera Season. With stage direction by Roberto G. Alonso and Marga Cloquell as soprano, it is expected to be one of the premieres of the season. It certainly will be for Camps, who at 31 years old has become one of the prominent figures in musical direction, a field where even now women, and much more so young women, are an exception. According to the most comprehensive study to date on this issue, by the SGAE Foundation, women directors did not reach 8% in 2019.

“I write to you / because I seek you. / And because I want to kill you”. “They are mistaken: / darkness hides nothing. / It makes everything shine”. “I will tear out my eyes / so as not to see / that you are looking”. These are just three of the fragments with which the journalist and collaborator of l’ARA Balears Clàudia Darder (sa Pobla, 1994) debuts as a poet with Com una cussa (Adia Edicions), a poetry book with which she was a finalist for the Salvador Iborra award. In one of the epilogues, the poet Joan Tomàs Martínez Grimalt defines it as “a piece of hot meat that still beats”.

It has been one of the questions the sector has asked itself since the Palma City Council announced its intention to bid for the title of European Capital of Culture: how will a title designed to attract more visitors to such a tourist city as Palma benefit the cultural fabric? And now the international experts who have evaluated the project have answered it: “It is clear that Palma is not looking to increase the volume of cultural programming or attract more visitors, as in both cases they have enough [...] and even understanding the local circumstances and needs, the jury wonders if the title of European Capital of Culture is the best platform to advance the city's aspirations.” This is how the report, made public this Monday, concludes, with which the committee, chaired by Tanja Mlaker, argues the decision to discard Palma from the candidates to obtain the title for the year 2031.

It was February 18, 2022, when the then Ministry of European Funds, University and Culture, headed by Miquel Company, announced an investment of more than 8 million euros by the Ministry of Culture and Sport in the reforms of different state-owned museums and cultural institutions in the Balearic Islands. Among them was the “integral architectural and museographic rehabilitation” of the Ethnological Museum of Muro, which for years had suffered from significant deficiencies that hindered its operation. “At this time, the drafting of the architectural project has already been put out to tender, with works scheduled to begin in 2023”, it was stated in the press release published on the Govern's website on that same day in 2022, that is, more than four years ago.

This March, singer Júlia Colom published a tune on social media that is not part of any of the albums she has released to date. It is a song written by her and her brother Martí, in which she speaks of a Mallorca that cries, of historic records, and of what, Colom says, we all know we have to do when the day gets longer: “stay inside at home so as not to bother them too much”. In a video that begins with a close-up of her and ends with an image of a hotel on the Majorcan coast, the singer from Valldemossa states: “Mallorca, you have been punished, / for getting the maximum profit: / a seasonal product / that now lasts all year round”. It is just the latest example of a whole series of songs with which island musicians and singers have demonstrated against mass tourism in recent years.

Between an essay and some memoirs and halfway between an allegation and a question, with as much rigor as personal perspective. This is the ground where Llucia Ramis's (Palma, 1977) latest book, Un metro cuadrado, written and published thanks to the No Ficció award from Libros del Asteroide, is situated. In it, the return to all the houses where she has lived serves the writer and journalist as a common thread to delve into all the ingredients with which the current housing crisis has been cooked. The Catalan version, published by Anagrama, will go on sale on May 13.

Among the Spanish cities still vying to be European Capital of Culture 2031 – Cáceres, Las Palmas, Oviedo and Granada – is the project promoted by the Palma City Council, under the slogan Mediterranean in motionAlthough Palma 2031 has been eliminated, there are numerous differences. The Councilor for Culture of Corte, Javier Bonet, pointed to two of them at the press conference he gave on March 18, five days after learning that Palma 2031 would not advance to the next phase. The first difference concerned experience and time. "All four had applied for the title on previous occasions," explained the deputy mayor, "and that means they have been working for 10 to 15 years." The other major difference, according to Bonet, is the budget allocated to the competition so far.

The inexhaustible, the groundbreaking, the irreducible, the ever-heterogeneous and, above all, the passionate and exciting Biel Mezquida (Castellón de la Plana, 1947) has been recognized with the 58th Catalan Letters Honorary Award. "Biel Mesquida's works are baroque monuments that exude passion and embody Mesquidian lessons at their peak: 'Good literature inspires reading and writing,'" the jury stated, considering him "a free, active author and defender of the values ​​that make us passionate human beings in dark times." "It is language, profound and connected to life and the historical moment," said Xavier Antich, president of Òmnium Cultural, at the announcement made at the Nau Bostik in Barcelona. The award ceremony will be held on June 8 at the Palau de la Música Catalana, and he will receive 20,000 euros.

"A method to reconcile the city with tourism through culture." This is the summary of the project with which Palma was vying for the title of European Capital of Culture 2031 until last Friday, when the Ministry of Culture announced the four cities that would advance to the next phase, among which Palma was not included. Among the arguments that, according to Bonet, may have influenced the jury's decision are Palma's "restrained investment" compared to the finalists—82,800 euros between 2025 and 2026, unlike Cáceres' 750,000 or Las Palmas' nearly two million—and the fact that it was the first time Palma had seen itself in Palma.

Three years after its official opening, and eighteen years after those in charge first began discussing it, the Toni Catany International Photography Center in Llucmajor will experience its definitive consolidation in 2026. This is confirmed by an exhibition program that will fill the center with works by leading figures in contemporary photography such as Joan Fontcuberta, Pilar Aymerich, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo; the addition of a new exhibition space within the center itself, in the former wine cellar; and the organization of activities that will establish partnerships with the Sorbonne University. To round it all out, they are launching a new website, created in collaboration with the Llucmajor City Council, which reflects this stage of maturity.

Some remember him as the counselor who, during the 1996 summer camp organized by the Association of Young Writers in the Catalan Language (AJELC) at the Sant Pere Colony, ran down the hallway shouting, "I have a mission to save the Catalan language." Thirty years later, Carles Rebassa (Palma, 1977), from Mallorca, said more or less the same thing in a very different context. It was when he received the Sant Jordi Prize for his novel Prometheus of a thousand ways, which will go on sale on March 24th. "We must have legislation that makes Catalan essential for living in the Catalan Countries," he said.

Palma will not be the European Capital of Culture in 2031. The cities selected by the international committee of experts are Cáceres, Granada, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Oviedo, as announced this Friday by Tanja Mlaker, president of the committee. Palma was excluded. The committee is made up of ten independent experts: eight appointed by the European institutions involved in the European Capital of Culture program and two appointed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. The members evaluated the nine submitted applications, including those from Burgos, Palma, Jerez de la Frontera, Potries, and Toledo. Mlaker highlighted the "passion and commitment" of all the participating cities and noted that the finalists have nine months to refine their proposals. The committee will meet again in December to decide which city will be awarded the title.

With the album The Ghorba Musician Rachid B has become one of the names that has revolutionized the Spanish music scene. Included in various media outlets' lists of the best albums of 2025, the album reflects on the feelings of longing and loss that accompany any migration process, as explained by this singer, who has spent half his life in Morocco and half in Madrid. He will present it on March 28th in a concert at the Estudi General Lul·lià in Palma, where Miquel Serra from Manacor will also perform.

There was a time when one of the most common criticisms in the cultural sector was that many people "lived off subsidies." Having moved beyond that debate and once it was understood and accepted that the cultural sector, like agriculture or industry, needs public investment, numerous grants from various institutions have been consolidated in the Balearic Islands over the last decade. And while these have contributed to the professionalization of the sector, the debates surrounding their operation and the resulting cultural fabric are quite diverse: from the transformation of many creators into managers, to the design of cultural programs and activities based on grant requirements, among others. Broadly speaking, Balearic institutions offer two types of cultural grants: competitive grants, where receiving the aid depends on meeting a series of requirements and which several cultural agents can apply for, and designated grants, which are awarded to specific agents based on their merits. In both cases there have been significant changes in recent years, especially noticeable with regard to the latter, the designated grants.

More than 3,500 performances, some 200 songs, and almost 50 years of history: these are some of the figures that define Cucorba, the children's entertainment group that, since 1977, has become a key part of the collective memory of several generations of islanders. This is confirmed by the requests they have already received to reserve tickets for their final performance, which will take place on January 4, 2027, coinciding with the group's 50th anniversary. Before their farewell, they will release one last album, which they will make available for free online. We spoke with two of its founders and current members, Francesc Aguiló and Gabriel Gamundí.

HeAtlas of the demons of Mallorca, by Xesc Alemany and Bárbara Sansó (Susaeta); The demons of the little porthole, by Neus Coll and Roberto Campillo (Literary Island), and Ona the demonWritten by Núria Duran and also illustrated by Bárbara Sansó (Triangle Kids), these are just three of the more than fifteen children's and young adult books published in the last five years that deal, from different perspectives, with the festival of Sant Antoni in Mallorca or, more specifically, its central figure: the devil.

This is the story of two friends of over forty years who, after a lifetime dedicated to the same profession, have decided to join forces. Each will continue her work with the same spirit as before, but they will begin to share projects, ideas, and analyses to address the current situation, which bears little resemblance to when they started. Times are tough for neighborhood bookstores, and Quart Creixent (Palma) and La 22 (Girona) know this all too well. Therefore, with the support of Abacus, these two historic establishments have formed an alliance that seeks to strengthen them and, above all, preserve them as they are.

It was at the end of January 2019 that the writer Neus Canyelles published her sixth book, The best vacation of my lifeAfter a hiatus of almost six years, the novel's protagonist is a writer named Neus who recounts her time in a mental health facility after attempting suicide. "She's a writer. She hasn't written anything for four years. She claims to have retired. She can't remember a good time since she was fourteen. She speaks of her life in a distracted way," says the report that the narrator reproduces in the book itself. Seven years later, in Canyelles's new book, a collection of short stories Waiting rooms Also published by Empúries, the psychiatrist's office becomes the setting for the reunion of two characters, two women who met as children and who have been scarred by the abuse one of them suffered at the hands of her schoolmates.