The new QM review, launching in both digital and print formats, aims to become a meeting point for knowledge, inspiration and reflection. Working alongside artists, thinkers, creators and cultural figures, QM seeks to outline the foundations of a shared, forward-looking Mediterranean that unites and propels us as a cultural community.
The Mediterranean: What myth do we want?
The first QM monograph seeks to reflect on the myth of the Mediterranean, not only to deconstruct it, but also to uncover shared values that can guide us toward a renewed narrative of who we are and where we want to go. In the spirit of our region’s secular tradition, it offers an agora where voices from across the Mediterranean can meet, speak freely, and rethink who we are—together
A myth of harmony and diversity under scrutiny
For centuries, the Mediterranean has been imagined as a space shaped by a unifying myth—a place of cultural, linguistic, and human harmony fostered through ongoing, fruitful exchange between its peoples and shores. All Mediterranean cultures are the result of constant contact: made of meetings and farewells, borrowings and thefts, agreements and conflicts, open hands and clenched fists.
Manuel Forcano
Explore the monograph…
What are you singing, Parthenope?
The sirens are still singing in Naples. Following their voices, poet Laura Casielles wanders through the city's streets and ruins, between ancient myths and contemporary literature.
Mediterranean Humanism
In this lucid and sensitive article, Héla Béji explores the gradual disillusionment with the Mediterranean myth.
Mediterranean Tragedies and Future Myths
Hani Hassan explores the symbolic and historical power of the Mediterranean, contrasting its calm and welcoming shores with the more tumultuous Atlantic.
The Mediterranean. Amid myths, stories and dreams
There are myths that speak of Us, that speak in Us. Such as Europa, this myth that gave its name and face to our continent. It was from Sidon, the current Saida in Lebanon, that the beautiful Europa, daughter of Agenor, was abducted by Zeus, transformed into a winged bull.
The Mediterranean, the Place where Faces Merge
The Mediterranean is above all a way of being in the world. Mediterraneans, no matter what country they come from, instinctively recognise each other in the similarities of culture and behaviour, or rather temperament.
Women, A Constant Presence around the Mediterranean Sea
Sophie Bessis challenges the male-centered narratives of history by tracing the enduring yet obscured presence of women across Mediterranean myths, religions, and historical periods
New Wars in Old Seas. A New Dream of Mediterranean peace?
Today, it is no longer possible to begin a text on the Mediterranean with sentences about a bygone era of prosperity and well-being.
Old News from a Dubious Mediterranean City
Mostar is often described through its bridge. Tanja Miletić chooses a different path. She reads the city through a book: Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape, by the Bosnian playwright Predrag Matvejević.
Narratives
Mediterranean Metamorphosis
As an epilogue of the A Sea of Words 2025 series, we have invited Karima Ziali to take up some of the questions launched on the occasion of the contest and carry them beyond fiction.
Twelve stories to imagine the Mediterranean
In line with its commitment to intercultural dialogue and to culture as a driver of social change, QM incorporates the finalist stories from the latest edition of the literary contest A Sea of Words into its editorial programme through a serialized publication.
“Speak and Look”: A Symphony of Women Writers for a New Vision of the Mediterranean
University researcher and North Africa expert Meritxell Joan highlights contemporary writings by women who multiply, strain and twist words to question stereotypes and narrate bodies in motion.
Fatima Mernissi, the Weaver of the Mediterranean
Fatima Mernissi (Fez, 1940 – Rabat, 2015) was able to use her creative thread to unravel stories of activism and resistance and courageous feminism, and to open unexpected paths in the intimate relationship between gender, religion, culture and power.
Civilisation or Border? Challenging the Myth of a Judeo-Christian Europe
Can we really speak of the Judeo-Christian myth as one of the founding pillars of today's Europe?
Dialogues
Tangier beyond the postcard
Contemporary Tangier and Morocco through the voices of Amina Mourid, Claire Trichot and Zoubeir Ben Bouchta: a cartography of the challenges and opportunities shaping the territory, social rights and culture.
In the Garden of Posidonia
In the incomparable setting of the Ateneu Barcelonès, Isona Passola and Maryam Touzani engage in a conversation about identity, belonging, feminism and migration. Two cinematic perspectives exploring the invisible bonds between both shores of the Mediterranean.
Interview with Amal Ramsis, Egyptian Film Director and Screenwriter
Ramsis' filmography has been recognised at international festivals and reflects a way of working with the camera deeply rooted in commitment, territory, and lived experience.
Egypt Between Fable and Truth: A Conversation with Filmmaker Sherif El Bendary
Sherif El Bendary’s films challenge the idealized Mediterranean, exposing Egypt’s inequalities. Using magical realism, his cinema reflects marginalized struggles and offers a complex, realistic portrait of the region.
Cinema in the Face of the Myths of a Homogeneous Mediterranean
The article explores how cinema shapes migration memory and the Mediterranean imagination, providing a critical space to challenge stereotypes and rethink our shared history in dialogue with Ricard Zapata.
Theatre and the Myth of the Mediterranean: A Talk with Carme Portaceli
Carme Portaceli highlights theatre as a space for Mediterranean memory and encounter, blending tragedy and humour. Regional artists transform pain into art, preserving tolerance and resilience as a shared identity.
Perspectives
The Fall of the Dictator in Syria and the rise from Ashes
A camera instead of a gun. From the first protests in Palmyra to his return after Assad’s fall, Syrian journalist Daham Alasaad chronicles exile, memory, and the search for justice in a country struggling to rise from the ashes.
A Visual Archive of Toni Catany: “La meva Mediterrània” (My Mediterranean)
Toni Catany’s La meva Mediterrània presents an intimate, plural vision of the Mediterranean, beyond stereotypes. His photographic archive reveals the sea’s beauty and complexity, turning landscapes into shared emotions.
Tales of a Restless Sea: Documentary Narratives of the Mediterranean
In collaboration with MEDIMED, this selection explores new Mediterranean narratives—migrant and political perspectives rewriting its myths through memory and resistance. A journey across a sea in motion.
A Cinema in Motion: Resistance from the Margins
Between Women Filmmakers’ Caravan (BWFC) has become a nomadic space of resistance and creative freedom articulating a political commitment capable of promoting cinema created by women — across the world, certainly, but especially within Arab countries.
The Mediterranean, an Actor on the Big Screen
Henda Haouala explores how cinema turns the Mediterranean into a character itself. From Cabiria to The Big Blue, she unveils a mythical, political sea reflecting beauty, conflict, and North–South divides.
Ink that Persists: Palestinian Comics against Oblivion
A visual project by Al Fanar Foundation exploring Palestinian comics as acts of memory and resistance. These works rewrite the Mediterranean narrative through exile, daily life, and the struggle to exist.
Voices
From Myth to Responsibility: When Amin Maalouf Talks to the Mediterranean
Amin Maalouf received the International Catalunya Prize for his work building cultural bridges. He revived the Mediterranean as a crossroads and urged coexistence as a shared duty.
A Homage to the Mediterranean through Music and Myth
Led by Jordi Savall, Orpheus 21 unites migrant musicians in a journey through Mediterranean memories. From Italy to Syria and Kurdistan, music becomes a dialogue of love, exile, and spirituality.
Adnan Özer’s Overflowing Mediterranean: Turkish Poetry in the Back-and-Forth of Myth
Turkish poet Adnan Özer evokes an intimate, ever-changing Mediterranean. His mystical, visceral verse rewrites the myth through exile, desire, and memory.
From Myth to Body: The Sensitive Geography of Elizabeth Grech
Maltese poet Elizabeth Grech leads us through an intimate, symbolic Mediterranean. Her poetry weaves love, exile, and memory through a feminine and resilient vision.
IEMed also recommends
Tunis hosts the exhibition “The Mediterranean: A Sea of Heritages”
An exhibition organised by the IEMed on the occasion of the EMUNI annual conference in Tunis.
Women, Culture, and the Path Toward Equality
On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2026, we aim to foreground the reflections of women working in the cultural field and connect their voices to the concrete activities carried out within our culture programme in 2025.
Concert in Tetouan, Mediterranean Capital of Culture and Dialogue 2026
A concert in Tetouan featuring “Ensemble Mediterrània” within the framework of the Anna Lindh Foundation's initiative of Mediterranean Capitals of Culture 2026.
QM, an IEMed’s Review on Mediterranean Thought and Culture
IEMed’s Executive President, Senén Florensa
Managing Director, Roger Albinyana
Director of the Culture, Gender and Civil Society Department, Gemma Aubarell
QM’s Advisory Board: Lola Bañón, Hélé Béji, Thierry Fabre, Hani Hassan, Carme Portaceli, Isona Passola, Mònica Rius, Chaimaa Ramzy, Carme Riera
Monograph nº38 coordinator: Manuel Forcano
QM Editorial Team: Mariona Rico, Lisa Hamou, Sergi Doladé, Jordi Bertran, David Rodríguez Seoane
Header photo: Toni Catany. Meknès, Morocco, 1989. © Fundació Toni Catany
