Today it cannot be said that there is a common culture of European countries, at least with regard to the book sector. In the 19th century there was a greater interrelation between the different European cultures, even if limited to the more educated segment of the population. Today this interrelation should be facilitated by communications and network development, yet it is paradoxically backward. It is difficult to say that there is a “European culture”, because in fact there are several cultures that are often ignored. Today we must recreate the texture of a common culture so that everyone can discover and re-discover the cultural heritage that the European states have represented and must continue to represent. This is why it is important to invest in young people! Education and school play an essential role in creating a sharing of culture and citizenship duties. In this context, an important role is certainly assigned to literature and books, both classic and contemporary.

The aim of the project is to spread the knowledge of the great classics and contemporary authors, known in their countries, but often unknown in the rest of Europe. Books but not only. The most appropriate approach is the intercultural one, capable of using different expressive languages, not only analogical and literary ones, but also and above all the more youthful and digital ones.

Università Pegaso is the coordinator of this project and, together with Bimed and Agra editrice, has designed the “Agorà of books” platform where students and teachers of the five partner schools can exchange information on the books of their respective countries, writing bibliographic cards of the authors, synopsis of the books, reviews and so much more.

Students are actively involved in writing through the “Relay of Creative Writing”, a format promoted for many years by Bimed in schools throughout Italy.  Starting from the main theme chosen by Bimed, that is “sustainability”, each school identifies a writer from their own country who writes the incipit of the book which is sent to the class of a partner school which writes the first chapter, passes it to the class of the second school, which writes the second chapter, and so on until the end of the story. The schools carry out a unique narrative experiment with the creation of stories written by several hands, which will be collected in a compendium, published online on the platform. The final result will be a Creative Book Toolkit, in the form of an English manual to make this tool transferable and replicable in other European schools.

To support the work of writing the chapters, Pegaso has developed an online course on storytelling techniques, created ad-hoc for the target student.

The schools are also engaged in the drafting of a multilingual glossary on intercultural dialogue and inclusion and in the production of “green” short films based on books that deal with environmental issues.

Particularly suggestive and stimulating is the participation of students and teachers from partner schools in the “Ship of Books for Barcelona”: Agra editrice organizes at the end of April a literary mini-cruise departing from Civitavecchia (Italy) and arriving in Barcelona for the “Feast of St. George, books and roses “, to celebrate the World Book Day. It is a literature festival on the sea for students with a rich program of meetings with writers, writing workshops, photography, journalism, film screenings, theatrical performances, games. In the 2023 edition 2 teachers participated for each school, in 2024 and 2025 also 8 students are involved for each school.

Finally, 5 transnational meetings are held in all partner countries and 2 dissemination events are organized in Turkey and Italy, respectively in the middle and at the end of the project.