MILAN — If one ever wanted to intellectualize the work of Miuccia Prada over her career in fashion, “Politics of Desire” would be an appropriate tagline.
That is also the title and theme of Miu Miu’s upcoming Literary Club event — now in its fourth iteration overall and third during Milan Design Week.
Under the direction of Prada herself, the three-day event planned for April 22 to 24 at the Circolo Filologico, Milan’s oldest cultural association, is conceived as a continuation of Miu Miu’s ongoing “dialogue with contemporary culture, fostering a discourse on sexuality, desire and consent,” the brand said.
After debuting the Literary Club concept in 2024 with “Writing Life” and last year’s “A Women’s Education” iteration — which explored girlhood, love and sex education — the new edition’s theme is shaped through the work of Nobel prize-winning, French-born author Annie Ernaux and Ama Ata Aidoo, one of the most authoritative figures in African literature and champion of post-colonial feminism.
Championing each day a landmark book from each of the two writers, Miu Miu selected the 2016 auto-socio-biography “A Girl’s Story” by Ernaux to kick off the agenda.
Set in the summer of 1958 and centered around the first sexual experience Ernaux had as an 18-year-old camp counsellor, the book explores the politics and power dynamics of intimate relationships, serving as the kickoff for a conversation at the Miu Miu Literary Club on desire, consent and social expectation. The panel discussion will feature French-German journalist and author Annabelle Hirsch, feminist thinker and author Lea Melandri, and Irish-born, New York-based author and journalist Megan Nolan.
The first day will be wrapped up by a lecture by cultural theorist Olga Goriunova titled “Desire After AI” on how digital worlds and AI are shaping people’s perception of desire in the technological age, as well as dangers posed by such alternate realities. The speech will stem from Goriunova’s book “Ideal Subjects. The Abstract People of AI” published last year.
The Miu Miu Literary Club’s second-day agenda is titled after Aidoo’s “Changes: A Love Story” novel from 1991, which shed light on the complexities and challenges of the lives of African women in post-colonial societies. The winner of the 1992 Commonwealth Prize, the book revolves around the story of a middle-aged Ghanaian woman divorcing her abusive husband and engaging in a polygamous marriage in hopes of breaking free from patriarchal norms and reclaim her independence.
A former Ghana minister of education in the early 1980s and the founder of the Mbaasem Foundation which supports African female writers, Aidoo’s book reading will develop into a panel discussion on the transformative power of self-determination and the challenges of modern love featuring Italian novelist and screenwriter Francesca Marciano, Liberian-American author Wayétu Moore, and Surinamese-Dutch anthropologist and gender studies professor Gloria Wekker.
The panel will be followed by a speech titled “How Do We Talk About Consent?” by author Katherine Angel, whose book “Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent” from 2021 explores sex consent and female empowerment, while advocating for a new sexual ethic.
In addition to the anchor panels and conversations, the Miu Miu Literary Club will feature lectures — curated by writer and researcher Olga Campofreda and feminist philosopher Rosi Braidotti — as well as reading sessions and live music performances daily.
Providing a culturally rich retreat from the frenzied pace of design week, it evokes the spirit of literary salons and artist collectives of yore.
Marking the fourth edition, the club will host a consultation library curated by Braidotti and filled with books that explore the historical importance of writing as a creative tool that has empowered women and their desires and ideals.
The 2024 inaugural Miu Miu Literary Club spotlighted the work of the late Italian writers and poets Sibilla Aleramo and Alba de Céspedes, while last year’s iteration in Milan centered on the work of French existentialist philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir and playwright and writer Fumiko Enchi.
The only international iteration, held last November in Shanghai, examined the same authors as the Milan edition in April, adding to the mix the work of Eileen Chang, widely considered one of the most important voices in contemporary Chinese literature.
