♦ Welcome to the website of the project Salon meets Agora: Literary Mapping of the Mediterranean. This project was initiated by the SpLitera cultural association from the Croatian city of Split and is being developed in cooperation with the Allianz Kulturstiftung and other partners. We started to ask one after the other authors from different countries around the Mediterranean to write us virtual postcards, to read out the texts of these postcards and to make them available as videos, and also to illustrate them with their own photos. Soon we want to organise online conversations and are looking forward to exciting topics. New contributions will be added every week.
♦ Originally, meetings of authors were planned in interesting coastal places in Croatia and Montenegro, but the pandemic changed the plans, and now we have turned the disadvantage into an advantage: Instead of just a few authors meeting in person to read and discuss their present-day vision of the Mediterranean, this website is being created to provide an overview of the situation on the Mediterranean as well as the current view of the Mediterranean from other parts of Europe..
And very soon we could convince ourselves that the idea was an excellent one:
actual texts and photos are produced that show this fascinating region in all its present vulnerability and glory. But authors from other areas are also concerned about the Mediterranean, and we want to offer them the opportunity to express themselves on this topic as well. The postcards from the coasts of the Mediterranean are gathered under the name Agora and those from other parts of Europe under the name Salon.
We do not know where the journey will lead.
We hope of course that one day we will meet in real life.
But until then we look forward to the virtual encounters on this webpage.