Image: Dua Lipa. Photo by Madison Phipps
Southbank Centre has confirmed that Dua Lipa will curate the 2026 London Literature Festival, which runs from Tuesday 20 October to Sunday 1 November 2026. Tickets are on sale. The festival page introduces her as the Grammy and Brit Award-winning musician and founder of the Service95 Book Club, curating a line-up of her favourite established and emerging writers.
The announcement puts one of the year's best-known music figures at the centre of a literary programme that sits inside Southbank Centre's autumn season across the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room. The festival is presented as part of the centre's continuing festivals and series rather than a one-off celebrity appearance, and the 2026 edition is supported by Bukhman Philanthropies.
The published line-up is built around author conversations. Dua Lipa appears with Zadie Smith on 'White Teeth' at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday 24 October at 3pm, with the poet Mustafa on his collection 'Nour' the same evening at 8pm, and with Patti Smith on her memoir 'Bread of Angels' on Sunday 25 October at 7.30pm. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Tareq Baconi open the programme at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Wednesday 21 October at 7.30pm with 'On Freedom', and Malorie Blackman marks 25 years of 'Noughts & Crosses' at the same venue on Wednesday 28 October at 8pm.
A separate Service95 Book Club strand ties the festival to Dua Lipa's existing reading platform. It includes a conversation with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad in the Purcell Room on Thursday 22 October at 7.45pm, a translated fiction showcase on Wednesday 28 October, and 'Fierce Sounds', a discussion of rhythm, form and sound in writing, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday 30 October at 8pm.
The festival arrives in a crowded season at the centre. The newsletter that carried the announcement also flags Anish Kapoor at the Hayward Gallery until Sunday 18 October, 'Dog Man: The Musical' until Sunday 16 August, the free Creative Intelligence weekender from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September, and free Riverside Sessions.
Southbank Centre says festival tickets are on sale now, with the literature programme the lead item in the announcement. Dua Lipa is named as curator, alongside the writers attached to the festival's public conversations, among them Mustafa, Patti Smith, Zadie Smith and Malorie Blackman.
