How the literati discovered Magaluf

Sprawled out across the kerb, exhausted and inebriated as we split boxes of 20 McDonalds chicken nuggets with old friends and new drinking partners, our faces dancing with the coloured florescent lights of the strip and hair streaked with sickly-sweet flecks of alcohol. That’s how I remember my first time in Magaluf, celebrating my A-level results at 18.

Almost a decade on, I found myself back there ­– except this time, I was chatting to Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh at a rooftop bar during a literary festival. So far, so highbrow. We were both in Mallorca for the inaugural Festival Literatura Expandida a Magaluf, which took over INNSiDE Calvià Beach by Meliá, an imposing but reasonably-priced hotel on the seafront, over the first weekend in October.

‘I like the idea that you can just dance on the tables and sh*t and then come over here [to the festival] and do this,’ said Welsh, jovially addressing the disconnect between the town’s international reputation as a breeding ground for lewd behaviour and its tentative steps towards becoming a cultural hub for the island, promoted by the likes of LEM and its partner Rata Corner, a well-known – but small – bookshop in Palma, Mallorca’s capital.