MIU MIU PRESENTS LITERARY CLUB IN SHANGHAI: “A Woman’s Education”

On 21st November, Miu Miu introduced Literary Club Shanghai – ‘A Woman’s Education’, exploring the work of three female literary masters: French Existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir; Fumiko Enchi, the pen- name for Fumi Ueda, among the most prominent female authors of the Shöwa era in Japan; and Eileen Chang, widely considered one of the most important voices in contemporary Chinese literature. Inspired by Europe’s rich heritage of literary salons and artists collectives, Miu Miu Literary Club was launched in 2024 in Milan and is a reflection of the lives of women past and present through the written word. Literary Club 2025, Shanghai, continues Miu Miu’s ongoing commitment to advancing contemporary thought and culture.

Located at the iconic West Wing, Shanghai Exhibition Centre, a major venue for events and exhibitions, and reflecting the city’s rich history, Miu Miu Literary Club Shanghai hosted a series of conversations exploring the subjects of girlhood, love and education, all springing from the work of these three great writers, challenge the rules taught to women for centuries. Alongside the program, readings of poetry and prose and live musical performances will unite an inspired community of talents, opening up new light of these long-revered figures.

The first conversation, “Simone de Beauvoir: The Power of Self-Awareness”, brought together Cao Dongxue, a literary scholar and translator of The Inseparables, Yuan Xiaoyi, director of the Institute of Literature in Shanghai and professor at Normal University and Zhang Pingjin, whose research focuses on 20th-century Chinese literature and culture in Shanghai, to explore de Beauvoir’s The Inseparables. Written in 1954 but, deemed too intimate to publish in her lifetime, only published in 2020, the novella sparks renewed interest in a great feminist thinker. In this work, the writer of The Second Sex (1949) and Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958) charts the journey of a young girl into womanhood and the importance of female friendship in the process of self-determination.

The next discussion, “Fumiko Enchi: Love and Resistance” led by Japanese writer and translator, Yoshii Shinobu, novelist, essayist, translator and deputy editor-in-chief, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, Huang Yuning and Ye Zi, associate professor, School of Chinese Language and Literature, Nanjing University and PhD in Literature, Fudan University, focuses on Enchi’s The Waiting Years (1956). A subtle critique of patriarchal society, the novel tells the story of Tomo, a woman married to a high-ranking politician, who is tasked with finding a concubine for her husband, thereby sacrificing her needs to a male authority figure.

The final panel, “Eileen Chang: Growth and Runaway”, featured Malaysian Chinese writer and journalist, Li Zishu, Chinese writer, editor and expert in Eileen Chang studies, Zhang Xi, and contemporary novelist, Di An, unpack Chang’s The Fall of the Pagoda. Born in Shanghai, Chang studied in both China and the west, before publishing acclaimed titles such as Love in a Fallen City (1943), The Golden Cangue (1943) and Red Rose, White Rose (1944). Her influence on Chinese-language female writers is second to none. Semi-autobiographical and originally written in English in 1963, The Fall of the Pagoda was published posthumously in 2010, and tells the story of Shen Pipa, whose love of literature and art eventually lead her away from her once prominent, now declining family to pursue higher education overseas, marking emancipation and a break from a traditional and repressive structure.

To accompany the conversations, leading Chinese actresses — and longtime Miu Miu collaborators — Miu Miu brand ambassadors Li Gengxi, Liu Haocun and Zhao Jinmai, gave a series of evocative readings. Live music was performed by singer-songwriter and Miu Miu brand ambassador Lexie Liu and Hiperson’s lead vocalist Chen Sijiang.

Over 600 audiences from fields of culture, literary, art, and fashion were invited to Miu Miu Literary Club in Shanghai, to witness the ongoing dissemination and inheritance of art and culture.