MedWeaves
Mediterranean Network of Indie Bookshops
Independent bookshops from Siracusa to Istanbul, Jerusalem to Tangier, Paris to Podgorica, weaving readers and writers together across one sea.
Who we are
We bring together readers and writers from Mediterranean communities and celebrate their diversity, in our shops and online.
MedWeaves is a network of independent bookshops around the Mediterranean. We share values, good practices and solutions to the problems every small bookshop knows, and we co-create cultural events (book clubs, author talks, literary journeys, an itinerant festival) that become bridges between countries and points of view.
For centuries the peoples of this sea have exchanged stories, words, myths and goods. Books carry that legacy. Each bookshop in the network brings its own Mediterranean fragrance, through where it stands and the languages on its shelves.
The network was born online during the pandemic, in 2020, and became an association based in Siracusa in 2022. In a time when walls are going up, we invest in relationships that last.
The Mediterranean is a divergent point of view: a carpet of many peoples, many traditions and many languages, historically open to the other.
The sea is our common ground
Over the centuries the countries of the Mediterranean have exchanged and intertwined histories, words, customs, myths and goods. Books carry that legacy. They let us think of this sea as one cultural space, where the same themes resonate from shore to shore in different keys, around a shared identity.
Identities are made at the borders
As Franco Cassano wrote, the Mediterranean, a space between many lands, is a model of relating to the Other through measure, contamination and respect for difference. In that light we offer our bookshops as concrete spaces of communication between differences, open to identities that are fluid, created and re-created in every book.
The book is our tool
A flying carpet of words, stories and narratives, where identities and borders come undone and are rewoven into an unexpected common embroidery. These are our Mediterranean weaves.
Rooted here, connected there
Each bookshop is deeply tied to its own community, and at the same time a bridge of dialogue to the communities of every other member. Each carries its own Mediterranean fragrance, in where it stands and in the languages and books it chooses.
Independent bookshops safeguard culture
Our reason for being is not that of chains, online sellers or libraries. It lives in the human and professional skill of the bookseller, in the conversation that helps each reader find their own taste. That is why independent bookshops matter to their cities: they nurture a critical spirit that respects different points of view.
Common roots, shared futures
From Ulysses to Montalbano, books have built common imaginaries across this sea. By rediscovering those roots through literary dialogue and activism, book clubs and literary journeys, we work for an inclusive, multiethnic and multicultural society, and for the first of our challenges: remaining human.
We stand together
Our shared values let us take a common stand and act in solidarity with one another. When walls go up and places are emptied of their stories, we invest in relationships that last, and in the voices of peoples who are silenced. Palestine lives in the words of its writers.
We grow by sharing
Through digital tools we open international encounters to our readers, and by exchanging good practices we help each other face a market dominated by large online platforms and big chains.
Dialogue, collaboration, peace, community, independence, enthusiasm, creativity, sensitivity, listening, shared value, culture, sustainability, innovation, printed books.
The bookshops
Each shop is rooted in its own city and its own languages. Together we host each other’s authors, run book clubs across borders and stand by one another.
The Educational Bookshop
East Jerusalem, Palestine
Run by the Muna family for four decades, a crossroads of Palestinian and international literary life.
Mahmoud Muna
Libreria Colapesce
Messina, Italy
Bookshop, café and wine bar since 2014, born from the travelling bookshop Pianissimo.
Frankeştayn Kitabevi
Istanbul, Türkiye
Co-organiser of Parole Mediterranee in Siracusa and Istanbul.
Ayşe Tümerkan
Les Insolites
Tangier, Morocco
A librairie in Tangier, on the strait where Africa and Europe face each other.
Stéphanie Gaou
La Libreria · Amarcord
Paris, France
The Franco-Italian bookshop of rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, since 2006.
Florence Raut
Llibreria Finestres
Barcelona, Spain
An independent bookshop in the Eixample with fiction in many languages, daily events and a shop dedicated to Palestine.
Programmes
Everything the network does, in one place: the festival, book clubs and literary journeys, trainings, author tours and our solidarity work. From 2026, our initiatives are dedicated wholly or in part to Palestinian literature.
Parole Mediterranee
Our itinerant literary festival. Each year it lands in a different city, and each edition puts writers, translators and scholars from different shores in conversation, with high-school students, university audiences and readers.
SiracusaOctober 2024
Focus on Türkiye with Ece Temelkuran, Ayfer Tunç, Gündüz Vassaf
Focus on Türkiye with Ece Temelkuran, Ayfer Tunç, Gündüz Vassaf
İstanbulMarch 2025
Veronica Raimo and Şebnem İşigüzel with their translators
Veronica Raimo and Şebnem İşigüzel with their translators
GreeceIn the future
The next stop, with a panel on Palestinian literature
The next stop, with a panel on Palestinian literature
Parole Mediterranee, the next stop
Planned with writers from Greece, Türkiye and Italy, and a dedicated panel on Palestinian literature curated by Mahmoud Muna. Alongside it, a book club run by Casa del Libro Mascali with Takis Katsampanis: “Mediterranean cities in motion: between crisis and change”.
FestivalPalestinian literature, second edition
A new online course with Mahmoud Muna for booksellers, readers and cultural workers, following requests after the first edition.
TrainingDaybreak in Gaza in Catania and Siracusa
Mahmoud Muna presents the anthology he edited with Matthew Teller, at Libreria Lunaria in Catania and at Casa del Libro Mascali with the Comitato Siracusano per la Palestina.
Author toursAtef Abu Saif and Iain Chambers in Sicily
Casa del Libro Mascali and Libreria Colapesce host a tour for the Palestinian writer and the scholar of migration and postcolonial studies.
Author toursEtapas 03: Turin
Spanish readers visit Turin and meet Dario Voltolini, Stefania Bertola and Younis Tawfik, the publisher Aragno and a reading circle on Greece.
Book clubs & journeysFrancesca Albanese, “Quando il mondo dorme”
The UN Special Rapporteur, now an honorary member of the network, presents her new book to around a thousand people.
Author toursA short training on Palestinian literature
Two online evenings with Mahmoud Muna for 28 booksellers, readers and cultural workers from Italy, the UK and the US. The University of Catania has since asked for a version for its students.
TrainingStanding with the Educational Bookshop
After Israeli police raided the Muna family’s bookshops in East Jerusalem, the network led an international solidarity campaign and fundraiser with booksellers, librarians, publishers, writers and translators in Europe and the US.
SolidarityParole Mediterranee in Istanbul
Veronica Raimo and Şebnem İşigüzel with their translators Eren Cendey and Nicola Verderame, and cultural presenter Eylül Görmüş. Around 300 people, many of them young readers, joined members of our Italian book club.
FestivalDaybreak in Gaza in Rome and Naples
Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller’s first Italian tour, each evening with an audience of about a hundred.
Author toursParole Mediterranee in Siracusa: focus on Türkiye
Six panels across the University of Catania’s Siracusa campus and the city’s Urban Center, with Ece Temelkuran, Ayfer Tunç, Gündüz Vassaf, Murat Cinar, Egidio Ivetic, Iain Chambers, Gennaro Ascione and Emanuele Fidone. About 100 people per panel and over 14,000 views online.
FestivalEtapas 02: Naples
The second book club and journey, this time bringing Sicilian and Spanish readers together, with Silvio Perrella, Giuseppe Maisto, Iain Chambers and the booksellers of Tamu.
Book clubs & journeys“J’accuse” with Francesca Albanese
Siracusa welcomes the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories and co-author Christian Elia. Over 400 people attend.
Author toursEtapas 01: south-eastern Sicily
Our first experiment: an online book club on Sicilian writers led by Casa del Libro Mascali, then a journey to meet Giuseppina Norcia, Costanza Di Quattro and the places in their books.
Book clubs & journeysFirst members’ meeting in Sicily
Booksellers meet in person in Siracusa, present the network to the city, and speak at the Festival delle Letterature Migranti in Palermo on indie bookshops as spaces of human relationships.
Network
Mahmoud Muna, the bookseller of Jerusalem
Born in Jerusalem, Mahmoud runs the Educational Bookshop and the American Colony Hotel bookshop with his family. He writes for publications including the London Review of Books and the Jerusalem Quarterly, and published the first Arabic edition of Granta.
Within MedWeaves he leads our trainings on Palestinian literature and will curate a panel on Palestinian literature at every future stop of Parole Mediterranee.
Daybreak in GazaStories of Palestinian Lives and Culture, edited with Matthew Teller. Profits go to Medical Aid for Palestinians.With the support of
- Fondation Jan Michalski pour l’écriture et la littérature
- Noi Albergatori Siracusa, Culture section
- Comune di Siracusa, patronage of Parole Mediterranee
In the press
- ActuaLitté, on the founding of the network
- Comune di Siracusa, Parole Mediterranee
- Siracusa News, the Istanbul festival
Join the network
Are you an independent bookshop on the shores of the Mediterranean, or close enough to feel its pull? If you share our values, we would love to hear from you.
- Tell us about your bookshopFill in the form. It takes about five minutes.
- Meet the membersWe invite you to one of our online calls to get to know each other.
- Weave something togetherCo-host an author, a book club or a festival stop with another shop in the network.
Members share audiences, authors and good practices, take part in Parole Mediterranee and our cross-border book clubs, and can count on the network when times get hard.
Your application is ready
We’ve opened an email to the network with your answers. If your email app didn’t open, copy the text below and send it to .