Biblioteka Azyl

About

Biblioteka Azyl is a queer library at Lipowa 13 in Lublin, in the second space of the city's contemporary art gallery, with the entrance from ul. Ofiar Katynia. It holds more than a thousand titles: novels, poetry, essays, history and children's books, most of them with queer characters at their centre. You can read on the spot or take a book home.

The collection came together entirely from donations. It began in 2021 as an artist's residency project at the gallery. Letters went out to publishers, authors and readers around the world, and close to four hundred books arrived in the first two months. It still grows the same way, and books can be sent to parcel locker LUB03A.

The library doubles as a community room. A queer circle meets here, and so does the Q-booxs book club, which runs in Polish and switches to English if you say so in advance. There are exhibitions, open mics, collage and zine workshops, and a free coworking space. Biblioteka Azyl is for adults.

The space has no steps and a gender-neutral bathroom. There is no Polish Sign Language interpreter on site.