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It always felt hot and hazy, coming off an 8-hour flight from Europe, and the backs of my legs would melt into our rental car’s leatherette seats on the drive from Logan Airport to my grandmother’s apartment in the outskirts of Boston But despite the fug inside my head, there was one thing I knew clearly from our previous visits: the gigantic tank we would pass on the highway As the car thudded rhythmically on the tarmac, the colossal gas holder, painted with a cheerful rainbow of brushstrokes, came into view, and my sister and I would search for the profile of Ho Chi Minh, which was said to be hidden somewhere in the design The game never lost its thrill and I knew that if only I could spot the threads of Ho’s straggly beard in the abstract stripes of colour, as I had been able to do on my previous visits, then I could follow them upwards to find his pert profile And there he was, on the edge of the blue streak, facing into the central band of red, with the name ‘Corita’ painted underneath   As a family, we were on our way to visit Alice Roach, my grandmother She was born in Boston in 1904 A devout Catholic, she wore her baby sister Florence’s caul in a pendant around her neck Irish lore held that the flap of skin that had covered Florence’s face when she was born gave her the gift of second sight, but she had died before the age of five When we arrived at the apartment, Grammy would spring up and pull a chicken potpie out of the oven, or slide a cylinder of sticky Boston brown bread out of its can to serve with franks and beans   Afterwards, the synthetic aroma of Andes crème de menthe thins wafted together with the illicit cigarettes she smoked in the broom closet Alice’s life had abruptly changed course when her husband died prematurely of heart disease and she had to raise her five daughters alone She trained as a physical therapist and worked well into

‘A crisis becomes a crisis when the white male body is affected,’ writes the philosopher Rosi Braidotti, interviewed in this nineteenth print issue of The White Review Braidotti’s work on the posthuman challenges all forms of supremacy – from humans’ abuse of the environment to deep-rooted racial and gender inequalities – in favour of a more expansive, less hierarchical view of humanity At a time when accelerating movements in global politics are propounding constricted views of who may be classed as ‘human’ and accordingly entitled to bodily autonomy – those who are white, male, heterosexual, rich, native-born – it feels imperative that we continue to seek out voices and narratives outside this shrinking mainstream We are wary, however, of providing another platform for agitprop and the conveyor belt of hastily expiring hot takes Instead we have sought to put together in this issue a collection of writing that is nuanced and reflective, curious and exacting; that will provide solace where required and spur inspiration elsewhere   Since the US election campaign, where debates turned on whether or not a female candidate was capable of withstanding the strain of a presidency, women’s bodies – coded as weak and frail, somehow imparting irrationality, and requiring subordination to male control – have been at the forefront of Trump’s sickening boasts and discriminatory policy-making Women who terminate pregnancies must be ‘punished’, Trump said in March 2016, before using one of his very first acts as president to police women’s control over their own bodies by reinstating a 1980s law denying funding to organisations which perform or provide information about abortions (‘Pro-life’ campaigners might note that during the 1950s and ‘60s, when abortion was legal in only four states, ‘back alley’ terminations accounted for 17 per cent of maternal deaths) Our protest comes in the form of fictions, essays, poems and works of art which interrogate constructions of the female body Jacqueline Feldman follows a group of Femen activists who have turned their bodies into vehicles of protest, and explores the way these women have been alternately vilified, patronised and objectified for exposing their bodies in

This is the editorial from the eighteenth print issue of The White Review, available to buy here    In 1991 the poet and novelist Eileen Myles, interviewed in this eighteenth print issue of The White Review, ran for office as president of the United States It seems unlikely that any editor of this magazine will ever run for high office, though given the current chaos on both sides of the Atlantic it would be foolish to make any firm predictions In the presumably permanent absence of direct legislative influence, we are faced with the pressing question of how a magazine can contribute to a democratic process which seems everywhere under threat The temptation is to throw the meagre weight of this small institution behind policies and strategies that reflect our own convictions, and to transform it into a mouthpiece for the dissemination of ideas that collectively communicate a coherent and actionable political position   Yet, as this country recovers from the most divisive political event in a generation, we might pause to consider the responsibilities of the magazine as a space for open dialogue The campaign to remain in the European Union failed in large part because it presumed the self-evidence of its case and shied away from antagonistic discussion in favour of a browbeating insistence that the political establishment (and such institutions as the IMF) knew what was right for our communities In Brexit’s wake it became routine to hear expressed (and rare to hear challenged) the conviction that an outright majority of the population were incapable of making a decision in their own interests, when even the most cursory glance at that dysfunctional, autocratic union revealed good (which isn’t necessarily to say sufficient) reasons for leaving The implication that a large part of the citizenry does not deserve the franchise is deeply troubling   In retrospect, it might be that the overwhelming consensus of the literary and art establishments in opposition to Brexit was a symptom of weakness rather than strength Our magazines and art spaces have always operated as arenas for the exchange of disruptive ideas, forums for what the

An Englishman, a Frenchman and an Irishman set up a magazine in London in 2010 This sounds like the beginning of a joke, but when we wrote this just over a week ago, it seemed probable, almost inevitable, that Britain would have voted to leave the EU by the time our next print issue is on press Post-Brexit, might it be possible for three EU citizens on low incomes to set up an arts and literature magazine in the UK? Rien n’est moins sûr   The ‘Life in the United Kingdom Test’ is a test for individuals seeking indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK or naturalisation as a British citizen The test lasts for forty-five minutes, the entrants have to answer twenty-four questions As of 1 June 2016, it costs £50 to take the test (up from £34) It is a compulsory part of an application for British citizenship or settlement in the UK Naturalisation costs an additional £1,236 If the polls at the time of writing prove to be correct, two of the founders of The White Review will be taking this test very soon   These are some of the questions they may be asked:   There is no place in British society for extremism or intolerance a) True b) False   All dogs in public places must wear: a) A collar with the name and address of the owner b) Wellington boots for big puddles c) Sunglasses on a sunny day to avoid eye damage d) A raincoat in wet weather   Who had a great influence on the English language and invented many words that are still common today? a) Edward Thomas b) William Blake c) William Shakespeare d) Wilfred Owen   What is the correct order of the national days? a) St George’s Day, St David’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, St Andrew’s Day b) St David’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, St George’s Day, St Andrew’s Day c) St Patrick’s Day, St David’s Day, St Andrew’s Day, St George’s Day d) St David’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, St Andrew’s Day, St George’s Day   Pubs are usually open from: a) 8 am b) 9 am c) 10 am d) 11 am   ‘The Enlightenment’ is known as: a) New ideas about politics, philosophy and

In The Art of the Publisher, Roberto Calasso suggests that publishing is something approaching an art form, whereby ‘all books published by a certain publisher could be seen as links in a single chain, or segments in a serpentine progression of books, or fragments in a single book formed by all the books published by that publisher’ A publisher’s success can be judged, he continues, by its ‘capacity to give form to a plurality of books as though they were the chapters of a single book All this while taking care – a passionate and obsessive care – over the appearance of every volume, over the way in which it is presented’ With these words Calasso, the legendary director of Italian publishing house Adelphi, captures something of what we attempt with each new issue of The White Review, considering it in relation to its predecessors as a new segment in a serpentine progression, or one fragment of a single and as yet incomplete book   Indeed, in this issue can be seen a continuation of the same themes that have preoccupied us since the beginning of this quixotic publishing venture New literature in translation – from the extraordinary French novelist Maylis de Kerangal, the great Hungarian László Krasznahorkai and the celebrated Korean poet Ko Un – is complemented by some of the most exciting voices to have emerged from Britain and Ireland over recent years in Caleb Klaces, Declan Ryan and Luke Brown Our dedication to hybrid, radical forms is apparent in the publication of Anne Carson’s ‘lyric lecture with chorus’ – a work that could as easily be produced on stage or film as within these pages – and Brian Dillon’s ekphrastic meditation on charisma, faith, and loss The combination of art and literature has always been a guiding principle of this project, and here we are delighted to present works by installation artist Alicja Kwade, a photographic series from Germany’s Annette Kelm, and new work by Swiss artists Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs Our catholic (a generous interpretation) tastes are reflected in the publication of a long-form essay on