Miu Miu hosted its Literary Club 2025 at Circolo Filologico Milanese, titled “A Woman’s Education”. Under the direction of Miuccia Prada, and now in its second iteration, the two-day event was, this year, a powerful conversation on female sexuality, literature, and desire 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.

The second day opened with “About Love, Sex and Desire”, an in-depth discussion centred around Fumiko Enchi’s novel The Waiting Years (1957), one of the first Japanese books to openly explore women’s sexual agency.

Introduced by Cindy Bruna, the panel featured Nicola Dinan, author of Disappoint Me, whose 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. The panel was moderated by spoken-word poet, model and activist Kai Isaiah Jamal. Together, they explored the significance of Enchi’s work—then and now—and the complexities of writing about intimacy and power from a woman’s perspective. The discussion was followed by prose and poetry readings and live music performances by Bluem, Enny, Kai-Isaiah Jamal, Nicola Mazzetti and Pip Miller.

The Literary Club continues Miu Miu’s commitment to celebrating women’s voices in art and literature, alongside initiatives like Women’s Tales. Two exclusive podcast episodes from the event, hosted by Phoebe Lovatt, are now available, featuring Lauren Elkin and Naoise Dolan.

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