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Dua Lipa opens library for banned and censored books in Portugal
- puelocesar 2mo agoThis was interesting until I read it's inside Livraria Lello. You have to pay to get inside and wait 1 hour in a line alongside tourists. So this looks more like a stunt than anything truly meaningful.
- throwawaypath 2mo agoSpat my coffee out laughing. Believing "The Handmaiden's Tale" is "banned/censored" is something only people as shallow as Dua Lipa believe. Everyone knows which "banned and censored books" won't be allowed at this library.
- happyPersonR 2mo agoGood on her using her platform for something.
- suddenlybananas 2mo agoWow, Margaret Atwood how dangerous and subversive.
- Guthwine 2mo agoNot sure if your sarcasm is directed at Dua Lipa for including Atwood, or at the states that actually removed it from their public schools (Texas, Florida, Missouri, among others), but it was actually banned in Portugal during the Salazar regime. Either way, I agree with your comment that there is nothing dangerous about Atwood unless you are a fan of authoritarian religious governments.
- suddenlybananas 2mo agoThat's strange that a book that was published in 1985 was banned by a regime which fell in 1974.
- Guthwine 2mo agoI was referencing a direct quote from the author, looks like the Booker Prize board actually looked into it and disputes the certainty of the claim. Oh well. However: 1. Regime change doesn't happen instantaneously. The Francoist line of thinking was still pervasive after Franco died, and through the 70s there was a waxing and waning of censorship. 2. The book was still restricted in multiple states, the spirit of my comment still stands.
- 1234letshaveatw 2mo agoThe spirit of incorrectness
- Guthwine 2mo agoInstead of replying in kind, I will benevolently nudge you to review the Hacker News comment guidelines. I don't think any of us want this site to fall to lower standards of other social media platforms.
- suddenlybananas 2mo agoRegarding 1, I still don't see why what happened the decade before the book was published in another country has any bearing on whether the book was banned in Portugal.
- buellerbueller 2mo ago[flagged]
- gadders 2mo agoYeah, she's really underground. Not many people have heard of her.
- illliillll 2mo ago[dead]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- caseysoftware 2mo agoAre those just banned and censored in Portugal specifically or the EU as a whole? A quick check here in the States showed all of them available on Amazon for under $25 each.
- tokai 2mo agoNo non of them are censored in the EU. They are all censored in the US, maybe with the exception of Salman Rushdie. US book banning is mainly schools and parent groups strong arming libraries and educators to forgo specific books.
- illliillll 2mo agoAre you serious about this? There’s not a single school in the EU where an employee takes books off the shelves because they find them offensive? Because that’s the standard you’re using for ”censored in the US”.
- caseysoftware 2mo ago"libraries and educators to forgo specific books" is neither "banning" nor "censoring" In the name of literacy, we need to use words properly.
- tokai 2mo agoNo, you need to understand that your specific narrow definition has not handed down by God, and is not more valid than others. US book banning has been a subject for so long now that you are tilling at windmills if you think you can deside what 10000s of people mean when they say banned. Is a specific institution or library are banned by their decision makers to have a book - that book is banned in that context. If you don't buy this that fair, but don't come at me with your pedantry when I just answered your question.
- caseysoftware 2mo ago> Is a specific institution or library are banned by their decision makers to have a book - that book is banned in that context. By that reasoning, all PG-13 and R rated movies are "banned" just because your elementary school library doesn't carry them. Absurd, huh? "10000s of people" can create new definitions of words as they choose, just don't be surprised when educated people think they're fools.
- dudul 2mo ago> In some cases, the author has paid for their words with their life.” Are there examples of these? The few examples mentioned in the article are easy to buy, at least in the US. Is there a full manifest somewhere?
- suddenlybananas 2mo agoI guess Salman Rushdie nearly did. https://www.service95.com/manifesto-library-launch https://www.service95.com/manifesto-library-launch looking here, it seems the best case would be Navalny, although he wasn't really killed for his book per se, but rather his political opposition.
- josefritzishere 2mo agoHundreds in Gaza alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_journalists_in_the_Gaza_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_journalists_in_the_...
- 2847372828273 2mo ago[flagged]
- newspaper1 2mo agoThese are journalists murdered by Israel.
- josefritzishere 2mo agoI am normally with the cynics but I have trouble believing that none of the commenters are unaware that some books are banned in schools, prisons and military bases, in America. This is not just a problem limited to foreign theocracies.
- wonderwonder 2mo agoThey are banned in the US in the same way playboy magazine is, they are not allowed in certain places. Would you say that Playboy Magazine is a banned book becuase its not allowed in schools and prisons?
- criddell 2mo agoI would guess the person you are responding to is thinking about more mundane books that are or have been banned in public and private schools in recent history. Harry Potter, for example.
- dudul 2mo agoYeah, I'm pretty sure I would get call for a quick chat with HR if I walked around the office with Mein Kampf under my arm as well. Schools, prisons, etc are institutions that can decide what is appropriate for their audience and how they want to spend their shelf space. A real banned book is a book that gets you in legal trouble if you're caught with it.
- everdrive 2mo agoLists of banned books are often quite disappointing, and I think they fall into a few categories: - Books that are simply bad books and in addition to being bad take an aggressive, political bent. (eg: the handmaid's tale) - Books that seem relatively anodyne, and it's not clear why they were banned. (eg: the perks of being a wallflower) - Books that governments might have feared in the old days, but are now much less threatening than other more readily-available material. (eg: 1984) I still think, even in these crazy, censorious times, that people who love banned books list are (intentionally or not) hearkening back to an older time when a centralized body could actually prevent access to information. Instead, modern book-banning feels much more symbolic. ie, "we do not approve of this book!" rather than effective. Anyone can buy the book on Amazon, or pirate it for free, or find countless video reviews which contain its ideas. And importantly, find many, many more extreme, subvesrive, rebellious, etc. ideas for free online. Of course I do not support the banning of the books, but I think sometimes once a book is banned this act gives the book power -- in more senses than one. Less discussed is that the fans of the book often believe it to be better than it actually is, merely for being banned.
- nottorp 2mo ago> Books that are simply bad books and in addition to being bad take an aggressive, political bent. (eg: the handmaid's tale) Handmaid's Tale is actually a pretty decently written book for a dystopia. You just need to like dystopias.
- SV_BubbleTime 2mo ago[flagged]
- nottorp 2mo agoIf you read the book instead of watching "influencers" you'd notice it's explicitly about a Christian theocracy, but whatever.
- like_any_other 2mo ago
- seydor 2mo agoThey are not banned in portugal. Appreciate the gesture but it s very inconsequential.
- nottorp 2mo agoActually the article title is shit clickbait because it IMPLIES those books are banned in Portugal. The museum is in Portugal. It is not specified where those books are banned.
- smith7018 2mo agoI think it's just a poorly written title. I doubt millions of people will click on the link specifically to learn which books Portugal banned vs to learn about that Dua Lipa is doing. A better title would be "Dua Lipa opens library in Portugal for banned and censored books."
- mcphage 2mo ago> article title is shit clickbait because it IMPLIES those books are banned in Portugal People on this site have some really bizarre ideas about what constitutes "clickbait".
- miltonlost 2mo agoThe same people who think "banned" and "censored" books must be completely banned and censored in all places to have earned that title instead of just at one point in the past.
- add-sub-mul-div 2mo agoPeople who litter the comments with worthless complaints about titles are one of the most annoying things about this place.
- Rooster61 2mo agoI did not get that implication. I simply thought it was a library that contains books that have been banned from some context that happens to be in Portugal.
- redsocksfan45 2mo ago[dead]
- Roark66 2mo agoThere are no books banned in EU... Some countries have laws that criminalise glorification of nazism or communism, but I never heard any book was "banned" as a result. Here in Poland we had "Mein Kampf" by certain Austrian painter in my primary school library for example.
- Tade0 2mo agoSeeing it in the flesh is the reason why I don't believe too many people actually read the original (and not the abridged version). It's a brick! And poorly written at that. The man had no talent for the arts.
- graemep 2mo agoNo Eu wide bans, but quite a few in some EU countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments#West_Germany_(1949%E2%80%931990)_and_Germany_(1990%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_govern... According to that list, in Germany unannotated editions of Mein Kampf are still banned.
- criddell 2mo agoWouldn't something like a book of child pornography be banned in the EU?
- fvdessen 2mo agoThat's not true at all, for example in Belgium, any book that discredits genocide, incites to racial hatred, or shows sex with minors is banned from sale and/or possession. Then there's also moral rights infringement, such as obscene parodies of Tintin, books explaining suicide methods, etc, etc.
- dualicker 2mo ago[flagged]
- world2vec 2mo agoOne of those marketing events in a cool instagramable spot in Oporto that already has huge queues of people just to photograph it and I'm sure it will only sell books in English catered to tourists and nomad tech bros that are already ruining the city's housing supply. Awesome.
- nancyminusone 2mo agoFor those of you pretending to have trouble understanding 'banned' in this context, it means essentially the same thing as when someone gets 'canceled'. People who are canceled are not literally thrown in prison and executed.
- an0malous 2mo agoI miss the days when words still had meaning
- buellerbueller 2mo agohuman language != computer languages and that's why the latter exists. if human language had the precision you are (futilely, ahistorically) pining for, then we could program with them.
- throwaway27448 2mo agoWords have more meanings than ever.... but last century produced wittgenstein; perfectly clear communication was always a polite fiction.
- an0malous 2mo ago> Words have more meanings than ever Right, that's the problem > but last century produced wittgenstein; I don't think a philosopher who died 80 years ago is driving the change in how words are used in the last 20 years. It has more to do with the Internet and the cultural forces driving people to use hyperbole or make things up to make money in the attention market. This article wouldn't be on HN if it was just about Dua Lipa starting a bookstore, they added "banned" so it would catch peoples attention even if that's basically a lie. > perfectly clear communication was always a polite fiction. The comment I replied to is trying to argue that it's ok to call books "banned" even if they're not banned, because it's like the term "cancelled" which at one point meant someone whose content was actually cancelled but I guess they're suggesting it doesn't mean that anymore either. I'm not arguing that words should have perfect meanings, that is obviously a strawman, but this article and comment thread are using words to mean the complete opposite of their common meaning.
- weinzierl 2mo agoLivraria does not mean library, but bookstore. The Livraria Lello where this is located, is definitely a bookshop. It is not clear to me from the reporting if Manifesto Library is a translation error or if it really is a library within a bookshop. I suspect it's neither and more like an art installation.
- SwiftyBug 2mo agoIt's a book store.
- serial_dev 2mo agoThey wrote: > inside the famed Livraria Lello bookshop So I think they are aware of the “false friends” words. With that said, I don’t think it’s an actual library, more like, as you said, an art installation, an exhibition, a space for highlighting books.
- wk_end 2mo agoI wish there were some photos of it in the article so we could get a better understanding of what it is. I've been to lots of bookstores with sections or displays for famously banned books. I'm pretty sure my local Indigo (basically a Canadian Barnes & Noble) has one. If that's all this is then it doesn't sound especially newsworthy outside of the celebrity involvement and maybe the renown of this particular shop. OTOH the article describes it as a "permanent" installation, which does sound a little different from what I'm picturing.
- ch4s3 2mo ago> more like an art installation Considering the length of the line to get into that place, I'd wager you're correct.
- wasabi991011 2mo ago> The Livraria Lello where this is located, is definitely a bookshop. And barely a bookshop at that, more of a tourist attraction. You need tickets to enter, and the main selection of books are classics, mainly public domain iirc. They have more recent/interesting books but only as decoration (I asked to buy a Naomi Klein book, they refused to sell it). Most people are just there to take pictures because the stairs inspired Harry Potter.
- ahmedfromtunis 2mo agoDua Lipa opens, in Portugal, a library for books that are banned and censored (elsewhere).
- adolph 2mo agoThat makes more sense. How could a library or a bookshop in a location legally offer books that are banned in that location?
- caseysoftware 2mo agoTHAT would be awesome bravery and freedom: "Come and take it" has been powerful before.
- smallerize 2mo agoThe first "Molon labe" famously did not go well.
- GeoAtreides 2mo agooh, i would say it went quite well: >The main source for the events of the battle is Herodotus. According to his account, the Spartans held Thermopylae for three days, and although ultimately defeated, they inflicted serious damage on the Persian army. Most importantly, this delayed the Persians' progress to Athens, providing sufficient time for the city's evacuation to the island of Salamis. >Though a tactical defeat, Thermopylae served as a strategic and moral victory, inspiring the Greek forces to defeat the Persians at the Battle of Salamis later the same year and the Battle of Plataea one year later. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe
- GuB-42 2mo agoI don't know the law in Portugal but I will assume the principles are similar to other western European countries. If you have book that are actually banned in these countries, I don't think many people will call it awesome. Books are typically banned for: - copyright: not really a ban, but the copyright holder simply doesn't want it to be published the way you want it to be, doing it anyway is just piracy. It can be seen as "brave" if the copyright owner is an asshole, but doing that to authors you support is not great. - hate speech: Germany for instance bans most Nazi stuff, whether or not it is a good thing is debatable, but in any case, what do you think the political message would be if you opened a Nazi library. Most other European countries have similar laws to some degree. - porn: Need I say more? Special mention to child porn, which is super-banned, and definitely not awesome. - libel: some people hide behind defamation laws to avoid criticism, but in most cases, these are actual lies and you don't want that. I don't know of any banned book in Europe that anyone "woke" (for a lack of a better term) would want to put forward.
- teh64 2mo agoI find this video that looks at Dua Lipa and her love of books great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1rULxGHCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1rULxGHCA
- Orochikaku 2mo agoFor anyone with doubts, I insist that you give watching the video a chance.
- daakni 2mo agoCame straight to my mind as well. Thanks for sharing. Her music is not my cup a tea but her interest in books seems absolutely genuine.
- Zer0Kelvin 2mo agoyou know the questions are good when the authors take a step back and think!
- werber 2mo agoI hope that her star power encourages young people to read literally anything. The ability for her fans to sit with a singular text, without ad breaks, sponcon, brand deals, and everything else on social media seems like a societal win.
- BLKNSLVR 2mo agoDua Lipa opens a library, in Portugal, for banned and censored books. Two of my favorite examples of grammatical importance: https://youtu.be/QMF5-0wfs1I https://youtu.be/QMF5-0wfs1I https://youtu.be/5yuL6PcgSgM https://youtu.be/5yuL6PcgSgM Seriously though, good on her.
- NoSalt 2mo agoI don't know anything about her music, but she seems pretty cool on the literary front.
- tim333 2mo agoI come across her most frequently on Google Maps where the yellow pin man icon for Google Street View is replaced by a Dua Lipa icon. (Not sure if it's global - I'm in London).
- beaker52 2mo agoA venture that gathers objects of subversion likely to draw the ire of authoritarian powers into a single building doesn’t strike me as something likely to peacefully exist for long.
- rsynnott 2mo ago... I mean, it's in Portugal. Are you expecting Russia or a Florida school board or whatever to bomb it?
- beaker52 2mo agoI mean… yeah? Since when would being in Portugal stop a motivated power? Just ask Vadym Yermolaiev, Andriy Portnov, Emilian Gebrev or the staff at the warehouse in Vrbetice. Being in Portugal is an implementation detail. It’s a soft target, but it’s a _very easy_ soft target when people have a host of possible enemies who might be motivated to disrupt your operations to point fingers at. None of the powers you’re criticising are going to be rushing to promote any investigation when your library accidentally sets on fire for the 4th time in 2 months.
- jchip303 2mo ago[dead]
- fatata123 2mo ago[dead]
- pfannkuchen 2mo agoWhenever the topic of “banned books” comes up, a bunch of people argue about whether they should be called “banned”. What I haven’t seen mentioned in these discussions is where the mental association of “banned books” comes from. In America, at least, the school curriculum spends a lot of time talking about dictators. It mentions, numerous times over many years of a child’s life, that something dictators often do is to ban books that could make people question them or that could make people support people the dictator doesn’t like, etc. In all such cases covered in the school curriculum, dictators’ “banned books” are not allowed to be sold in the country at all, and are often destroyed, sometimes even in mass burnings. So, this is the psychological association people typically have with the phrase “banned books”. The news articles over the past X years declaring something like “Government Y bans books!” seem to be leveraging this mental association to give people the emotional impression that Government Y is doing dictatorships things. I think this is why people get annoyed, since not allowing whatever books in the school library is not a dictator thing (okay dictators do it but it’s like drinking milk or being against animal cruelty, it’s not something that is primarily done by dictators). So, when people say that not allowing a book in a school library is a type of ban, they are correct, but they ignore this association which most people have from school.
- Levitz 2mo agoI think it's a little bit naive to think they ignore the association. They know it perfectly well, which is why they are using it. Same thing with concentration camps, same thing with mentions of Gestapo.
- glimshe 2mo agoI've banned a number of books from my household as I don't want my child exposed to them. And I support banning them from the school. Children aren't adults. It's reasonable to expect that education caters to a common denominator within society. I would only have a problem if adults couldn't acquire these books.
- vasco 2mo agoTo a common denominator yes but if you aim for too much breath then you miss out on a lot of good things if you ban until almost everyone is satisfied. And some fads that get popular to ban things I disagree with like when people said violent games were the reason for violence or that rock and metal music made teenagers angry or that grunge makes them kill themselves. Many times some groups latch on to some popular culture topic as the reason for X pre-existing problem of the world.
- like_any_other 2mo agoDear reader, "banned" in this case means government institutions (school libraries) did not promote the book to schoolchildren. It does not mean possession of the book got anyone arrested, or that the books are not extremely easily available in major corporate retailers (or even in non-school government-funded libraries). So for example, one is unlikely to find in this library the kind of stickers that got Sam Melia arrested [1], or anything the UK would consider "likely to stir up racial hate" [2], such as the music album “Phoenix Rising” by Embers of an Empire [3,4]. Whether books by e.g. Jared Taylor are also "banned" in this manner in the UK is left wonderfully vague - the only way to find out is to be found possessing one, and then see if the government prosecutes you. You get chilling effects for free, and avoid the bad PR of a "banned books" list! [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867 [2] https://www.thelawpages.com/criminal-offence/Possessing-racially-inflammatory-material/-for-display/publication/distribution-with-intent/likely-to-stir-up-racial-hatred-496-9.law https://www.thelawpages.com/criminal-offence/Possessing-raci... [3] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/R-v-Robert-Talland-Rosie-Talland-and-Stephen-Talland.pdf https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/R-v-Robe... [4] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3yl0dgq3no https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3yl0dgq3no
- HorizonXP 2mo agoHere's a video to highlight why Dua Lipa is not a typical "celebrity book club" type person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1rULxGHCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1rULxGHCA I've actually really been a fan of her, and her music before I heard about her Service95 endeavour. So seeing that video led me to looking into her Service95 work, and yeah, I have to say, she's the real deal.
- moralestapia 2mo agoCool.
- ActivePattern 2mo agoA lot of people in this thread think they're being clever by pointing out that a bookstore can't sell "banned" books. But it's common for bookstores and libraries to feature titles that have been banned in some jurisdictions. It's a small way to push back against censorship and promote freedom of information and critical thinking.
- dudul 2mo agoAnd there are always people who think they are clever by saying that a library deciding to not have a book on their shelves means the book is BANNED. OK, it's banned in that library, so what? This is not the government sending you to prison if they find you with this book in your pocket, it's a library deciding to use the shelf space for something else and thinking the book is not appropriate for their target audience.
- Norseman5 2mo ago[dead]
- quaddoggy 2mo agoLooking forward to picking up copies of The Bell Curve and The Camp of the Saints since free speech is now so widely supported in Europe.
- anthk 2mo agoExcept the Bell Curve it's bullshit. I'm from Europe (Spain), and even the Francoists said otherwise. Right wing people further than Pether Thiel itself. Go figure. A nun, some woman (women are far more aware than men on emotions as their hormones basically grant an A+ on social skills) stated that Black People weren't dumb, but African people had no tradition at all on stimulating or paying good attention babies/toddlers as the Western mom do with little plays and the like. That lead to mild development issues. She followed some children with more Western-like educations and caring and they got far better marks than the ones locked to their cultures. Add a far better nutrition on top and now you know the reasons on why the Black African countries are underdeveloped. Westernize them and their IQ will boost like crazy.
- JuniperMesos 2mo ago[flagged]
- tptacek 2mo agoWhich is an SES effect; SES effects are all generally "highly politically relevant".
- anthk 2mo agoAnd still better than most Africans. The more attention they pay to their children, the better adults you get. Also, a good nutritition can be THE major change for anything, such as the Omega3 fats from several fish based dishes.
- tptacek 2mo agoIt's 100 books. Does your house have bookshelves? You have more books than this. It's like a display at a bookstore.
- carodgers 2mo agoOnly two books are explicitly listed by the article, neither of which have been banned anywhere. Unsubsidized is the more accurate word here. Some governments have chosen not to pay public money to stock these books in libraries, but no government has created criminal penalties for ownership. It may be the case that her library includes some books that genuinely carry criminal penalties, but the article does not provide enough info to assess that.
- Anthony-G 2mo agoTerrible article. As a European who grew up in a country that has banned¹ thousands of books, periodicals and other media for most of its existence, I was expecting this article to be about some campaign to unban books that were still being censored as a relic of the Salazar era. The headline is deceptive and the article itself is uninformative. It wasn’t until I came across a reference to “school districts” that I realised that this is just more American culture war bullshit being imported into Europe. ¹ literally banned, i.e. it was illegal to buy, sell or distribute such publications in the state: https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1929/act/21/enacted/en/html https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1929/act/21/enacted/en/h...
- ffixf 2mo ago[dead]
- fleroviumna 2mo ago[dead]
- nickdothutton 2mo agoThe "real banned books" are (in my opinion) generally those which have not been translated.