MIU MIU LITERARY CLUB 2026
POLITICS OF DESIRE
Circolo Filologico Milanese - Via Clerici, 10 – Milan
April 22nd - 24th 2026

Miu Miu presented Literary Club 2026, “Politics of Desire”, under the direction of Miuccia Prada. Now in its fourth iteration, this year’s event continued the aim to strengthen Miu Miu’s dialogue with contemporary culture, fostering a discourse on sexuality, desire and consent. From the personal to the political, and from literature to life, desire emerged as a force that determines the right to exercise self-determination – a radical act of resistance.

As always, the work of two highly revered and distinctive authors was the starting point from which to broaden the debate. This year, they were Nobel Prize–winning, French-born Annie Ernaux with A Girl’s Story (2016), and one of the most authoritative figures in African literature and an icon of post-colonial feminist thought, Ama Ata Aidoo with Changes: A Love Story (1991). Taking place over three days, Miu Miu Literary Club took inspiration from Europe’s rich heritage of literary salons and was located at Circolo Filologico Milanese in Milan. In addition to the panel conversations, for the first time this year, two lectures were introduced as a moment of intellectual exploration, inviting participants to reflect on how literature can serve as a medium to deconstruct roles and identities.

Day 1 - 22nd April 2026

The programme began with “A Girl’s Story” by Annie Ernaux, a panel discussion based around the novel of the same name. This first conversation explored the complex intersections of desire and consent, examining how social expectations shape the shared understanding of personal experience. It highlighted the transformative power of memory as a testament to self-ownership and resilience. The themes were explored by a multidisciplinary group of speakers: German journalist and author Annabelle Hirsch; prominent feminist thinker and author Lea Melandri; and Irish-born, New York–based author and journalist Megan Nolan. The discussion was moderated by British writer and curator Lou Stoppard, returning to the Literary Club for the third year.

Later the same day, the first lecture took place. Entitled “Desire After AI”, cultural theorist Olga Goriunova discussed her most recent book, Ideal Subjects. The Abstract People of AI (2025), which examines how our lives and daily behaviours have come to reside in the world of data and artificial intelligence as they form ideal subjects - and how desire becomes oriented towards such abstractions - presenting an uncanny and fascinating portrait of modern subjectivity in the technological age. This condition poses new dangers: while we know how to resist older norms and categories, the new ideal subjects of AI seem personalised and prolific. This requires a new politics of desire. Goriunova was introduced by Jennifer Guerra, an Italian journalist and writer known for her work on feminist philosophy and bodies. Guerra integrated nomadic subjectivity into her analysis of contemporary right and desire.

Day 2 - 23rd April 2026

“Changes: A Love Story” was the title of a conversation which opened day two of the Literary Club and was built around Ama Ata Aidoo’s most famous work. Originally published in 1991, Changes: A Love Story, which won the 1992 Commonwealth Prize, tells the story of a middle-aged Ghanaian woman who divorces her abusive husband and enters a polygamous marriage with the illusion of preserving her independence. This choice becomes a poignant lens through which to examine the complex intersections of modernity, tradition and female agency. Here, desire becomes a tool of political negotiation: intimate choices confront patriarchal and cultural structures. In this conversation, internationally renowned personalities explored the transformative power of self-determination and the challenges of modern love: Italian novelist and screenwriter Francesca Marciano; Liberian-American author Wayétu Moore; and Surinamese-Dutch anthropologist and Emerita Professor of Gender Studies Gloria Wekker. The discussion was moderated by journalist, author and critic Nadia Beard.

This conversation was followed by the lecture “How Do We Talk About Consent?”. Author Katherine Angel - whose book Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent (2021) explores sex in contemporary society - examined how, in the name of consent and empowerment, women are often urged to proclaim their desires clearly and confidently, even though the conditions for sexual desire in a world full of constraint and unease are not always favourable to eroticism. She advocated for a sexual ethic rooted in mutual vulnerability and not-knowing. Angel was introduced by Elisa Cuter, a film critic working on cinema, politics and sexuality at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf in Germany.

Conversations and lectures - curated by Olga Campofreda, a writer and researcher of Italian culture, language and literature, in collaboration with feminist philosopher Rosi Braidotti - took place on April 22nd and 23rd. These were followed, on both days, by live music performances as well as prose and poetry readings.

For the first time, Miu Miu Literary Club hosted a “Curated Library” for consultation and inspiration by Rosi Braidotti, installed within the Circolo Filologico and featuring a selection of titles focused on the power of writing as a creative medium that has, for centuries, enabled women to voice their desires, ideals and affirm their independence.

Finally, for 2026, the Literary Club introduced an additional day of programming. Open to the public on April 24th, the Circolo Filologico was transformed into a reading room where visitors could pass by and read or explore the selection of books from the library curated by Rosi Braidotti. Designed to enrich cultural dialogue and a sense of community, this final, less structured moment aimed to encourage discourse and enhance and cement the power of the written word.

Throughout the three days, copies of A Girl’s Story and Changes: A Love Story were available for this occasion.

Annie Ernaux

Born in 1940 in Normandy, Annie Ernaux has spent over half a century documenting the friction between personal memory and social history. Raised in Yvetot, where her parents ran a grocery shop and café, her early years were defined by the transition from a working-class milieu to the middle class environment of a private Catholic school, a shift that ignited a lifelong investigation into the complexities of social transit. Her formative years were marked by pivotal departures: a summer at a holiday camp in 1958, which brought her first sexual experiences, and a period as an au pair in London in 1960. These moments, later distilled in A Girl’s Story (2016), saw her abandon teacher training to pursue a degree in literature in Rouen. This intellectual pivot laid the groundwork for her dual life as an educator and a writer. While qualifying for the prestigious agrégation and raising two sons, Ernaux began to develop her signature écriture plate (flat writing), a clinical, unvarnished prose designed to strip away the sentimentality of traditional memoir. Her literary debut came in 1974 with Cleaned Out, a fictionalized account of her 1964 illegal abortion. However, it was A Man’s Place (1983), a searing portrait of her father’s life and death, that secured her wide acclaim and the Prix Renaudot. After moving to the new town of Cergy-Pontoise in 1977, where she resides to this day, she continued to dismantle the silences surrounding the female experience. Her 2008 masterpiece, The Years, redefined the genre by intertwining her own life with six decades of collective French history, earning international recognition and a shortlist for the International Booker Prize. In 2022, Ernaux was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots of personal memory. As the first woman published in Gallimard’s Quarto series during her lifetime, she remains a monumental figure whose work transforms the intimate into a radical political act.

Ama Ata Aidoo

Born in 1942 in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Ama Ata Aidoo emerged as one of the most incisive voices in African literature, dedicated to dismantling the paradoxes surrounding the modern woman. Her intellectual journey began at the University of Ghana, where she started writing with a gravity that would soon earn her international recognition. In her debut play, The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), she explored the friction between traditional African culture and the return of Western-educated elite, a theme that became a hallmark of her early production. Aidoo’s literature was never merely aesthetic; it was an act of radical observation. In her experimental novel, Our Sister Killjoy (1966), and her collection of short stories, No Sweetness Here (1970), she utilized the oral traditions of her heritage to speak directly to the complexities of communal society. She openly rejected the notion that Western education was the primary catalyst for the emancipation of African women, arguing instead that such influences often imposed new restrictions. Her work brought visibility to the exploitation of women who, left as unacknowledged heads of the household due to war or unemployment, were forced to navigate a world that ignored their agency. Beyond the page, Aidoo’s commitment to her country was reflected in her appointment as Ghana’s Minister of Education in the early 1980s. After a period of literary silence, she returned with the poetry collection Someone Talking to Sometime (1985) and the acclaimed novel Changes: A Love Story (1991), winner of the Commonwealth Prize. Throughout her career, which included teaching positions from Cape Coast to Stanford, Aidoo gained a prominent place within the international literary discourse. Until her death in 2023, the writer never ceased to shed light on the experience of African women, ensuring that their voices remained at the center of the global literary stage.