A library that collects only books banned from shelves elsewhere: the singer Dua Lipa has turned that idea into reality together with the historic Livraria Lello bookshop in Porto, Portugal. The new Manifesto Library is the first permanent home of her Service95 Book Club and opened in late June to launch the literary festival BABELL – City of Books.
Around 100 titles are permanently on display there — all of them works that have been banned somewhere in the world, struck from curricula or removed from public libraries. They are arranged around four guiding themes: power, control, voice and memory. Among the books are classics such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Franz Kafka's The Trial, Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses — books frequently targeted by censors over themes such as racism, sexuality or criticism of those in power.
"This library is dedicated to books that have disappeared, and to authors whose courage unmasks structures of power and control," Dua Lipa said at the opening. The collection has its place in Livraria Lello's new cultural auditorium, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Álvaro Siza.
The occasion is anything but abstract. Book bans are rising again around the world: in the United States alone, more than 5,600 books were banned or had their access restricted in 2025, according to the American Library Association and the writers' organisation PEN America — often works that engage with identity, history or social inequality.
Why literature in particular is so often targeted seems obvious to many experts: books open up other perspectives, invite reflection and question the existing order. That is precisely where initiatives like the Manifesto Library see their purpose — keeping access to such texts open. For Dua Lipa the project is not a one-off: this autumn she will curate London's literature festival at the Southbank Centre and intends to carry the theme further.