Global pop sensation Dua Lipa refuses to sit back and relax as a newly-wed and is set to open a library of banned and censored books in Portugal a week after taking her vows.
Called the Manifesto Library, the physical iteration of her book club Service95 – which she has been running since 2021 – opened at the historic Livraria Lello bookshop in Porto, Portugal on Saturday.
While this initiative is part of a multi-day celebration of the Livraria Lello’s 120th anniversary, the library will remain at the venue as a permanent feature.
In a press release, Lipa was quoted as saying, “When I founded the Service95 Book Club, my ambition was for it to become a home for writers and readers, wherever they are and whatever their circumstances. Reading the world brings us closer – but sadly,
not everyone is in favor of that.”
She called the new library a “dream collaboration” and said that the carefully curated 100 books in its collection were works that “that ask questions or have been questioned”. She noted in the statement that many of the authors of these texts had “paid for their words with their life”.
The collection includes works such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Reginald Dwayne Betts’ Felon. Other represented authors include Salman Rushdie and Olga Tokarczuk.
“This library is a shrine to books that have disappeared, to authors whose courage unmasks structures of power and control, and to readers who refuse to be told what book they are allowed to read. You are invited to visit and decide for yourself what belongs on these shelves. Because sometimes the most subversive thing you can do is read a book and then talk about it,” the pop star said.
Books are a big part of Lipa’s life and public image, even outside of her book club. She met her now-husband Callum Turner at a bar and they got talking because they were both reading Hermann Diaz’s Trust. She was also a keynote speaker at the 10th anniversary celebrations of the International Booker Prize this year.