Aesop’s Queer Library Is Returning For Pride 2024
By
3 weeks ago
This is one of our favourite annual pop-ups
How are you celebrating Pride this year? Once again, the Australian luxury cosmetics brand will be championing the literary explorations and representations of LGBTQ+ culture with the return of its Queer Library for the fourth year running. Here’s everything you need to know.
Everything You Need To Know About Aesop’s Queer Library 2024
Queer storytelling is transformative, and this is the foundational belief underpinning Aesop’s popular annual Queer Library, filling the Soho store will a selection of books written by and about queer people, inviting visitors to select a complimentary title from the shelves to keep (while stocks last).
This year, Aesop’s focus is on the intersection of queer and racial identities – that is, intersectionality. Curated by Aesop’s team members, the selection of books this year therefore highlights LGBTQIA+ authors who write from the rich and complex juncture of race and queerness. While some books were sourced from popular independent queer bookstore Gay’s The Word, others were purchased at a generous discount from a variety of publishers. A new feature for 2024 is the extension into audiobooks in partnership with Faber and xigxag: Jason Okundaye’s debut work, Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain, will be available for visitors to select, extending the Queer Library beyond the printed word.
Following the success of 2023’s Queer Library, Aesop is again partnering with Black-owned creative agency A Vibe Called Tech, which will host a talk in partnership with Aesop on 5 June at the Bishopsgate Institute, home to one of the UK’s most extensive collections of LGBTQIA+ history, politics and culture. Under the title ‘Multiple Margins’, the agency’s founder Charlene Prempeh and creative director Lewis Dalton Gilbert will host a conversation between novelist and magazine founder Liv Little, writer Jason Okundaye, and artist and writer Osman Yousefzada, exploring living with multiple identities and amplifying the importance of intersectionality in queer spaces and in literature. If you can’t make it, highlights will be shared on Aesop’s digital channels, continuing that accessibility theme.
After the Queer Library has closed, Aesop Brighton will host a special reading corner from 2–5 August, allowing queer joy to extend out of London and into the UK’s queer capital.
When?
Aesop’s Queer Library will run from 27–30 June, with complimentary books available to all visitors while stocks last.
Where?
Aesop Soho (41 Lexington St, Carnaby, London W1F 9AJ).
