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NewsNovember, 3 Dua Lipa Reflects on Curating London Literature Festival
Dua Lipa has looked back on her time curating the London Literature Festival 2026 at the Southbank Centre, describing the two-week event as "a dream come true" after its 19th edition wrapped up on Sunday, 1st November. Together with her Service95 Book Club, the singer and songwriter filled her hometown with a run of sold-out events, which formed part of the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary celebrations. In her own words, curating the festival was a dream come true: she got to sit down with some of her all-time literary heroes and share the experience with a full-house audience in London. That, she explained, is exactly why the Service95 Book Club exists – to bring readers and authors together for shared moments of joy, reflection and gratitude. She also thanked the Southbank Centre team for being the perfect partners, and borrowed a phrase from Patti Smith to call these moments her bread of angels. The programme centred on headline interviews in the Royal Festival Hall, where Lipa spoke in front of audiences of 2,700 with Zadie Smith, poet and musician Mustafa and Patti Smith. Other sessions she curated included appearances by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, a Translated Fiction Showcase, Kae Tempest's Fierce Sounds, a look at Re-Writing Male Tenderness, drop-in sessions with Authors of the Estate and a pressing panel on censorship held with English PEN. Ted Hodgkinson, Head of Literature & Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, had warm words for the partnership. He called it a remarkable year for the festival, which had filled the Southbank Centre with momentous and joyous events across 13 days and stood out as one of the highlights of its 75th anniversary. Dua, he said, brought a fresh curatorial eye and a wonderfully wide-ranging sensibility to the programming, and it was thrilling to see her vision take shape on their stages and draw people of all ages together around a shared love of literature. He thanked Dua and the Service95 Book Club team for a one-of-a-kind collaboration.
Photo: Music-News |
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