taking off

Hi everyone,

Here I come with this new blog, devoted mainly to books and authors. My plans are to write about the writers and artists which I'll be representing through SalmaiaLit, an agency devoted to copyright representation that I'm planning to launch by the end of March/beginning of April.

Before all, I think I need to explain a couple of things such as the origin of the agency's name and why am I writing in English... well, Salmaia is an almost lost Catalan word (nowadays it isn't well known even among the Catalan speakers)
Salmaia is the name given to the mixture of salty and spring water. The kind of water that you would find when rivers merge into seas. I've chosen Salmaia because I think it gives the idea of gathering things together, of a meeting point. Translating this idea to books and literature was very appealling to me as I think the main role of a literary agency is to act as a meeting point between authors and publishers, between writers and readers. A kind of salmaia (mixture) of creativity...
Besides, Salmaia (and this is where I first met this word) is the title of a wonderful CD by one of my favourite singers, Maria del Mar Bonet. The whole CD is devoted to Mediterranean songs, a mixture in itself of different lands, styles and musics. There you can find songs from Turkey, Italy, Greece, the Balearic Islands... some musics are inspired by popular or folk melodies, some others have been composed (and played) by artists such as Zülfü Livaneli, a fine Turkish composer, singer and novelist, or the amazing 'Ensemble de Musique Traditionelle de Tunis'. Lyrics are also popular or by poets such as Joan Vinyoli, Albert Garcia and Isidor Marí.

The first of the 13 songs of the CD is entitled 'Merhaba', which in Turkish means 'Hello', so... Merhaba to this blog!!

Now, I'm writing in English because I have the feeling that by using this language I will be able to cover a wide range of readers. The ideal thing would be to translate every entry into different languages but I'm afraid I won't have the time to do it. However, I might be using other languages every now and then.

I'll be back in a few days telling you about more things!
This will be our website, still under construction http://www.salmaialit.com/