Dua Lipa is swapping arenas for the Southbank Centre this October. The pop star has been named guest curator of the 2026 London Literature Festival, and the first wave of her programming has now been confirmed, pairing Lipa with some of literature’s biggest names across the festival’s opening weekend.
The appointment puts Lipa in the same curatorial seat previously held by figures like Harry Styles, who shaped this summer’s Meltdown Festival at the same venue. Her edition arrives as part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year and the U.K.’s National Year of Reading, and marks the 19th edition of London’s longest-running literature and spoken word festival. The full event runs October 21 through November 1, with Lipa’s own hosting duties concentrated in the opening weekend of October 24 and 25 at the Royal Festival Hall.
Lipa’s involvement isn’t a surprise pivot into books — it’s an extension of work she’s been doing publicly since 2023, when she launched the Service95 Book Club as part of her wider Service95 culture platform. Each month, she picks a title and interviews its author for the club’s podcast, and that same format is shaping her festival programming this year.
Confirmed Lineup So Far
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Thursday, Oct 22 | Activist Nadia Murad in conversation |
| Saturday, Oct 24 | Dua Lipa in conversation with Zadie Smith on White Teeth |
| Saturday, Oct 24 | Dua Lipa in conversation with Mustafa on Nour |
| Sunday, Oct 25 | Dua Lipa in conversation with Patti Smith on Bread of Angels |
Each pairing leans into a different corner of Lipa’s reading life. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth remains one of modern British fiction’s most acclaimed debuts, and the conversation gives Smith a chance to revisit the novel more than two decades after it first put her on the literary map. Mustafa, the Sudanese-Canadian musician and poet, will discuss Nour, his debut poetry collection built around the theme of ceremony, featuring contributions from an unusually wide circle of collaborators, including Pedro Pascal, Channing Tatum, and poet Warsan Shire. Patti Smith rounds out the weekend with Bread of Angels, her third memoir and a more intimate companion to her National Book Award-winning Just Kids, tracing her teenage years and early creative awakening. Nadia Murad, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Yazidi human rights activist, appears earlier in the week in a separate conversation as part of the festival’s broader programming.
Beyond these confirmed dates, the wider festival lineup includes additional names tied to the Service95 partnership, among them poet and musician Kae Tempest, author Malorie Blackman, and novelist Hernan Diaz, alongside a series of panels focused on translated fiction.
Lipa has described the curation process as one of her most personal projects to date, saying in a statement that curating the Southbank Centre’s festival “is a dream come true.” She’s framed the lineup as a mix of established names and emerging voices she’s discovered through the book club, rather than a straightforward greatest-hits list of famous authors.
Tickets for the confirmed events are on sale now through the Southbank Centre’s official website, with additional festival programming and ticket release dates expected to be announced in the lead-up to the October opening. For a festival now in its 19th year, handing the curator’s chair to one of pop’s most vocal literary advocates gives the 2026 edition a crossover audience the event hasn’t had in past years — and with three of Lipa’s own sit-down conversations already locked in, the opening weekend alone is shaping up to be the hottest ticket the festival has had in some time.
