Convey your passion for books, animals, children and nature and try to make the world a better place. Mireia Bazu was born in Barcelona, grew up in front of the San Juan de Alicante beach and, after living in other countries pushed by her work, she has decided to settle her life in El Verger. A town where you can escape from the speed of big cities and where you can find the beauty of the wild just a few minutes from home.
Driven by these values and this way of understanding life in a more leisurely way, she has recently launched her own children's publishing house, Mar de Sauces. But this story does not start there. Simply Olivia it is his first work. A children's story created together with the illustrator Marjoris Pirela.
The book narrates the adventures of a dog, Olivia, and her inseparable friend Kai. The characters are based on "a furry companion", the family dog, and Mireia's son. Inspired by the deep connection she saw between the two, the new editor wrote this story a few years ago, and the story quickly became a family favorite. After some changes and a few years in between, Simply Olivia It will be released in physical format next October.
"I think that labels limit, pigeonhole into something that is not even a quarter of a person"
The work has many nuances and different readings, but Bazu defends one above all: «The importance of being authentic in our individuality. To be as we are and to be able to express all that without being labeled. The writer places special emphasis on this aspect, since, with both Olivia and Kai, she had to face comments that labeled the personalities of both.
“They said about Olivia that she was grumpy and about Kai they asked me if he was good, for not crying a lot, or if he was naughty. Whether they are good or bad, I think that labels limit, pigeonhole into something that is actually not even a quarter of a person's personality. For this reason, after a thousand adventures together in the story «Kai loves Olivia just as she is. She shy, brave, grumpy, adventurous. In all ways".
«The idea is to work and transmit my passion for books through you to you»
But, the launch of the publishing house and the book is closely related to what inspires him in this small region, the Marina Alta. Mireia decided to settle in El Verger because she had the need and she wanted her son to grow up in a slower environment, with more nature around her. «The Marina Alta in that is wonderful. We are eight minutes walk from the sea, Segària a few minutes by bike and even less by car. All this wonderful natural environment provided us with a much slower life. A slower life, in connection with the authentic, with the beauty of the little everyday things, which is really what makes life worthwhile », she affirms.
The idea of launching this project may sound better from a big city, however, the editor's intention is more in line with this environment surrounded by little corners to discover. «In some way I want to contribute my grain of sand to build or to reverse on a small scale the opposite trend to all screens, all quickly, with hardly any human connection. The idea is to work and transmit my passion for books through workshops, in schools, in the one to one».
Mireia is convinced of the emotional bonds that are created around reading: «Many times the love for books is born in the child in the lap of his parents. And it's not so much what they understand or the story they tell him, but all that experience of infinite love in his arms or through the voice ». And Mar de Sauces has all the requirements to recover that passion for reading on paper from schools, libraries or cultural initiatives in the area. In short, to contribute to increasing the cultural wealth of the region from respect for literary work and promoting values that are intrinsic to this oasis of calm and nature that the Marina Alta represents.
“A small oasis where you can return to the essentials, to things made with love and to respect the individual rhythms of each living being”
That is why, beyond the stories, another of Mireia's future goals is to broaden her publishing horizons and work to promote the natural and privileged environment of the region. «My son and I go to many of the excursions that are organized from the Montgó Natural Park or in the Marjal de Pego-Oliva, where they are doing beautiful projects. I have consulted some Doñana park guides as a reference and I would like to do something similar here, with illustrations of the different wonderful enclaves that we have in the area and written by naturalists who know them very well and I am with them as editor ».
After all, Mireia has fallen in love with the natural essence of the region, where, according to her, they try to respect "the wild, the wild, nature, like the dunes on the beaches, for example." For this reason, it has decided to establish its vital pillars in the area and with Mar de Sauces "create a small oasis where you can return to the essential, to things made with love and to respect the individual rhythms of each living being" something that, without a doubt, the Marina Alta gives him every day.
