Four years ago, Meritxell Ral was watching the news when she heard that Calonge, 90 minutes north of Barcelona by car, was offering €10,000 grants to anyone who wanted to open a bookshop there.Though only a few kilometres inland from Costa Brava, the medieval town was facing depopulation and shuttered shopfronts as businesses and young people gravitated towards the coast. In response, local leaders launched a bold initiative to reinvent Calonge as Catalonia’s first permanent “book town”. Ral jumped at the chance to start her own business. “I didn’t know the village but I needed a change,” she says. She wasn’t the only one. Within 24 hours, more than 270 people applied.

Today, Calonge is home to six bookshops, including Ral’s generalist Rals Llibres and others specialising in comics, music and history. The town attracts foreign and local visitors all year with literary events, poetry readings and a wine and theatre festival. “Over the past four years, Calonge has come back to life,” says its mayor, Jordi Soler Casals.

Calonge isn’t the world’s only book town. The concept emerged in the 1960s, when Robert Booth began filling empty buildings with books in the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. Now the International Organisation of Book Towns connects 25 locations worldwide, including Montolieu in France and Urueña, the first in Spain. In Calonge, the project has revitalised the local economy and attracted investment; there are now two new restaurants and a 12-room hotel. “We were surprised by the power of books to create synergies between people,” says Soler Casals.

As coastal resorts become overcrowded, Calonge offers a quieter, more thoughtful experience – a cultural model that could help to reshape the region’s future. “We need to learn to diversify,” says Soler Casals, highlighting the potential of Catalonia’s inland regions to offer culture, wine, hiking and historical heritage. “Sol i platja are important but they shouldn’t be everything.”
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