This may sound like sacrilege to any dyed-in-the-wool academics, but books are undoubtedly in fashion right now. Whether it’s clothing brands using tiny little books as bag charms in their latest campaigns, It-boys being papped with a paperback hanging out their back pockets, or the internet’s obsession with accusing men of ‘performative reading’, the humble book has reached the rank of status symbol, a signifying tool that lets the outside world know rivers run deep beneath the still surface. And while we could argue for hours about whether books as a trend are a good or bad thing (more people reading is surely positive?), it’s clear that Miu Miu is approaching the subject a little differently.

While the aestheticisation of reading is something we’ve all had to contend with in 2026, the Miu Miu Literary Club offers an antidote to that mode of thinking, thoughtfully exploring contentious topics, with books by women at the centre of these investigations. Founded in 2024 by Miu Miu creative director Miuccia Prada, the literary club is a natural extension of Mrs Prada’s worldview. Considering the designer’s background in political organising, her PhD in political science, and collections that challenge traditional notions of gender and beauty, the club feels less like an attempt to partake in a trend than a genuine spotlighting of feminist literature that she holds dear.

After two inaugural editions in Milan, and one sojourn to Shanghai, this fourth edition returned to Milan’s Circolo Filologico for ‘Politics of Desire’, focusing on A Girl’s Story by French writer Annie Ernaux and Changes: A Love Story by Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo. The latter book, set in 1990s Ghana, is concerned with the story of career-driven Esi Sekyi, who is forced to leave her first husband, Oko, after an act of marital rape, and following that agrees to become the second wife of Ali Kondey, entering into a polygamous relationship. For the discussion on this story, British actor Emma Corrin began proceedings with a reading from the book, which was followed by a discussion led by the journalist Nadia Beard, and a panel including authors Francesca Marciano and Wayétu Moore, and the Dutch-Surinamese academic Gloria Wekker. After Corrin’s reading, when Beard introduced the story, she described it as “a book full of consent”, which immediately crystallised the undercurrent theme of the literary club, in that, within the idea of ‘Politics of desire’, the concept of consent was also integral to this discussion.

When I speak to Moore after the panel, she agrees. “So I believe that consent was so integral to who Esi was and who she wanted to be as a free, independent woman,” says the author. In the story, it’s Esi’s consent that propels the narrative: ending her first marriage after her husband breaks the contract of consent, and also entering into a polygamous relationship and consenting to be Ali’s second wife. “So her entire being, her arc, everything, was based on whether or not she agreed to being a second wife,” continues Moore. “From a Western perspective, being anyone’s second anything, especially in something as sacred as the covenant of marriage, would not be seen as liberating, but her consenting to it was enough.” In the case of Changes, when consent becomes the wellspring of an entire narrative, it shows how lives can be eternally affected by the decision to break that contract. 

The literary club’s focus on Ernaux’s 2016 book A Girl’s Story also entered into more discussions on the topic of consent. The book is an autofictional memoir that recounts the pivotal summer of 1958, when the 18-year-old protagonist has her first sexual encounter with an older man. The traumatic encounter leads to the protagonist experiencing earth-shattering shame, and although Ernaux never describes the encounter as rape in the book, the murky politics of consent haunt the narrative. Author Megan Nolan, who was on the panel discussing the book in Milan, holds that, “the reason consent is so complicated is that you don’t always even know what you want.”

“From a Western perspective, being anyone’s second anything, especially in something as sacred as the covenant of marriage would not be seen as liberating, but her consenting to it was enough” – Wayétu Moore

In the story, Ernaux describes her intense desire for H, the older man with whom she shares the sexual encounter, and that desire can then be confusing when confronted with a traumatic event, leaving you wondering whether that emotion was assent to the act itself. Importantly, it took Ernaux until 2020, four years after publication and 62 years after the incident, to describe it as rape. “This decades-long process of getting to be able to describe something as rape is very relatable, because it’s just sometimes really difficult to know what you wanted,” says Nolan on the story.

The topic can be a thorny one to tackle, and it’s something that most cultural institutions would shy away from, let alone a fashion brand – but Miu Miu’s Literary book club was a space that allowed this difficult conversation to flourish. Rather than taking a moralising tone, the event used loved literary works to produce conversations about very real things, ones that in turn provoked stimulating and personal conversations between fellow guests. Rather than give you the watered-down version of what a book club could be, Miu Miu takes you far beyond the glossy exterior of a fashion house.