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Dua Lipa opens library for banned and censored books in Portugal
- suddenlybananas 3mo agoWow, Margaret Atwood how dangerous and subversive.
- Guthwine 3mo 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 3mo agoThat's strange that a book that was published in 1985 was banned by a regime which fell in 1974.
- Guthwine 3mo 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 3mo agoThe spirit of incorrectness
- Guthwine 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago[flagged]
- gadders 3mo agoYeah, she's really underground. Not many people have heard of her.
- illliillll 3mo ago[dead]
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- caseysoftware 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago[flagged]
- newspaper1 3mo agoThese are journalists murdered by Israel.
- josefritzishere 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago[flagged]
- seydor 3mo agoThey are not banned in portugal. Appreciate the gesture but it s very inconsequential.
- nottorp 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo agoPeople who litter the comments with worthless complaints about titles are one of the most annoying things about this place.
- Rooster61 3mo 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 3mo ago[dead]
- Roark66 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo agoWouldn't something like a book of child pornography be banned in the EU?
- fvdessen 3mo 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 3mo ago[flagged]
- world2vec 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo agoI miss the days when words still had meaning
- throwaway27448 3mo agoWords have more meanings than ever.... but last century produced wittgenstein; perfectly clear communication was always a polite fiction.
- an0malous 3mo 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.
- throwaway27448 3mo ago> Right, that's the problem Is it a problem? I think it allows greater flexibility for humor and subtext than ever. It's the people who insist on contextualess interpretation that rain on the parade. > it's ok to call books "banned" even if they're not First of all, of course it's ok. Nobody is getting hurt. Second, the books are banned—just not where the bookstore is. I'm not sure how anyone could struggle to understand this. Anyway, what book is banned everywhere? Has any book in history really been banned to such an extent? Or do you really think Dua Lipa would be investing in a bookstore that would immediately be shut down? Being upset at this just seems like a waste of energy. In fact, I would go so far as to say that for the most part it's the people who do believe in canonical definitions that get hurt by thinking they communicate clearly, by allowing others who do have a more flexible understanding of semantics undermine and fool them. We should teach words as polysemous by default so as to ensure they're able to function in the modern world. Hell, a great deal of wordplay can only be enjoyed if you're able to hold multiple definitions in your head at once. For instance, "literally" notoriously connotes "figuratively".... sometimes. This is actually quite an old phenomenon that well predates the internet. But it allows ironic commentary on the speaker's perspectives that forces the audience to interpret the phrase in a broader context. There is certainly a role for formal, unambiguous speech—in technical communication, in legal briefs, in analysis more generally—but it's not hard to see why people enjoy straying far beyond that in service of fluid, natural, and concise communication.
- weinzierl 3mo 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 3mo agoIt's a book store.
- serial_dev 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago> more like an art installation Considering the length of the line to get into that place, I'd wager you're correct.
- wasabi991011 3mo 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 3mo agoDua Lipa opens, in Portugal, a library for books that are banned and censored (elsewhere).
- adolph 3mo agoThat makes more sense. How could a library or a bookshop in a location legally offer books that are banned in that location?
- caseysoftware 3mo agoTHAT would be awesome bravery and freedom: "Come and take it" has been powerful before.
- smallerize 3mo agoThe first "Molon labe" famously did not go well.
- GeoAtreides 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo agoFor anyone with doubts, I insist that you give watching the video a chance.
- daakni 3mo 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 3mo agoyou know the questions are good when the authors take a step back and think!
- werber 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo agoI don't know anything about her music, but she seems pretty cool on the literary front.
- tim333 3mo 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).
- happyPersonR 3mo agoGood on her using her platform for something.
- beaker52 3mo 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 3mo ago... I mean, it's in Portugal. Are you expecting Russia or a Florida school board or whatever to bomb it?
- beaker52 3mo 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 3mo ago[dead]
- fatata123 3mo ago[dead]
- pfannkuchen 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo agoCool.
- ActivePattern 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago[dead]
- quaddoggy 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago[flagged]
- tptacek 3mo agoWhich is an SES effect; SES effects are all generally "highly politically relevant".
- anthk 3mo 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 3mo agoIt's 100 books. Does your house have bookshelves? You have more books than this. It's like a display at a bookstore.
- carodgers 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago[dead]
- fleroviumna 3mo ago[dead]
- nickdothutton 3mo agoThe "real banned books" are (in my opinion) generally those which have not been translated.
- puelocesar 3mo 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 3mo 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.