Ibiza revisited

Good evening.
Ibiza has worked hard to clean up its act over the past couple of decades. Putting its reputation for drug-fuelled partying behind it, the Balearic isle has reinvented itself to appeal to visitors looking for a different kind of enlightenment, whether it be on a yoga retreat or chilling out by the pool of an upmarket agroturismo.
Long before he became a bestselling author, Matt Haig worked for the largest club night on the island, Manumission. It was the 1990s, now considered Ibiza’s “wildest decade”. Selling tickets around the bars of San Antonio and Ibiza Town, he spiralled into dependency on alcohol and drugs and eventually had to return home. Years later, deciding that he needed to confront his past as part of his recovery process, Matt revisited Ibiza. What he discovered surprised him – a gentler and more peaceful side of the island, one that had remained hidden to him during his hedonistic years. “It was genuinely healing to return here, to see the place where I’d nearly died,” he writes. “This was a different me visiting what had become a different place.” But not all of the changes were for the better.
On his recent visits, Matt became profoundly aware of the challenges facing the island, as a combination of overtourism, environmental changes and economic inequality threaten to tip the delicate balance. He decided to address some of these issues in his latest novel which is set in Ibiza: “I knew I had an opportunity to highlight the need to be aware of the issues here. To understand, ultimately, how the places we visit don’t just change us, but we change them.”