Miu Miu introduces Literary Club, 2025 – “A Woman’s Education”. Under the direction of Miuccia Prada, now in its second iteration, the event this year explores the subjects of girlhood, love and sex education through the work of two international literary masters, French existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir, and Fumiko Enchi, the pen-name for Fumi Ueda, among the most prominent female authors of the Shöwa era in Japan. Conversations centred around these subjects challenge the rules taught to women for centuries, questioning their veracity and any preconceived ideas. Alongside, live music performances and prose and poetry readings bring together an enlightened community of cross-disciplinary talent, shedding new light on these historically revered names while enhancing Miu Miu’s commitment to the exploration and advancement of contemporary thought and culture.
Located at Circolo Filologico Milanese in Milan, the Miu Miu Literary Club took place on April 9th and 10th from 2pm until 9pm.
A landmark title by each author is championed: opening with “The Power of Girlhood”, an in-depth exploration of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Inseparables. Written in 1954, but, deemed too intimate to publish in her lifetime, only released in 2020, the novella sparks renewed interest in a great feminist thinker. In this work, the writer of The Second Sex (1949) and Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958), charts the journey of a young girl into womanhood and the importance of female friendship in the process of self-determination. On the second day, with “About Love, Sex and Desire”, attention turns to Fumiko Enchi’s The Waiting Years (1957), an explicit account of women’s sexuality, among the first published in her native country. The novel tells the story of Tomo, a woman married to a highly ranked politician, who is tasked with finding a concubine for her husband, thereby sacrificing her needs to a male authority figure. Both works embody the power of the written word as a creative medium through which women may express their most profound and provocative thoughts, in so doing, enriching the lives of other women in return.
Miu Miu Literary Club, “A Woman’s Education”, is conceived to further explore Miu Miu’s ongoing relationship with contemporary culture and with the voices of women in the arts.
In a series of panel conversations curated by Olga Campofreda – a writer and researcher of Italian culture, language and literature – ideas focusing on women’s position in society and contributors’ own experiences of growing up as women in disparate societies will be shared and opened up for conversation, all springing from the words of these extraordinary authors.
An esteemed panel of writers, speaking from both personal and professional perspectives, will lead conversations across both days. They include French-American Lauren Elkin, most recently author of Scaffolding and Art Monsters (2023), Flâneuse (2016), and translator of The Inseparables; Indian-born novelist and short story writer Geetanjali Shree, winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize for Tomb of Sand; Italian novelist, Veronica Raimo is the author of four novels, the most recent of which, Lost on Me (2022), was shortlisted for the Premio Strega Prize, was longlisted for the International Booker Prize, won the Viareggio Rèpaci Prize, and was translated into several languages; Nicola Dinan is the author of Disappoint Me her debut novel, Bellies (2023) won the Polari Prize and was shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards, a LAMBDA Literary Award and the Mo Siewcharran Prize; Irish writer Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times (2020), a Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and American poet and novelist Sarah Manguso, long-listed for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, Wingate Literary Prize, and Mark Twain Award, and author of The Two Kinds of Decay (2008), shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Prize.
Panels will be moderated by writer and curator Lou Stoppard and by spoken-word poet, model and activist Kai Isaiah Jamal.
Following conversations, similar evocative poetry and readings will take place on both days, together with live music performances.
Copies of both The Inseparable and The Waiting Years will be available for this occasion.
Miu Miu Literary Club is the latest in a series of cultural experiences devised by Miu Miu to promote the arts. The inaugural Literary Club, Writing Life, which took place in April 2024, brought back into focus the work of Italian feminist authors Sibilla Aleramo and Alba De Céspedes. Further initiatives include Miu Miu Women’s Tales, the longest running commissioning platform of female-led short films and collaborations with female artists for fashion shows.
Registration to attend Miu Miu Literary Club opens on April 3rd on miumiu.com.