Illes Balears

Only a group of islanders mad about the islands could have concocted a book like this. The photographer Sebastià Torrens (Inca, 1964) and writers Miquel Rayó (Palma, 1952), Ponç Pons (Alaior, 1956), Jean Serra (El Biar, Algeria, 1952;the son of an exiled couple from Ibiza) and Antoni Vidal Ferrando (Santanyí, 1945) have conjured up the four elements that in ancient times were believed to shape the world: air, earth, water and fire / light, showing us, through these elements, the nature and landscape of the Balearic Islands. The extraordinary photographs by Sebastià Torrens of the wildlife and landscape of Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza, Formentera and Cabrera, sometimes so delicate and other so striking, are a manifesto in favour of conserving a beauty that only human stupidity would dare to destroy. And Rayó, Pons, Serra and Vidal Ferrando, with their poetic texts that emerge as the fruit of their radical status of islanders, allow us to share and admire the deep and unconditional love they all feel for the Balearics.