Mailing List


Rosanna Mclaughlin
Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Articles Available Online


The Pious and the Pommery

Essay

Issue No. 18

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

Issue No. 18

I.   Where is the champagne? On second thoughts this is not entirely the right question. The champagne is in the ice trough, on...

Essay

April 2019

Ariana and the Lesbian Narcissus

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

April 2019

‘Avoid me not!’ ‘Avoid me not!’                                   Narcissus   Let me describe a GIF I’ve been watching. A lot....

El Polaco appears brandishing his Stanley, as he lovingly calls his pocket knife Five young hooligans huddle round him like classroom students He leaves them gobsmacked with a dazzling display of knife skills: in under a minute, he unscrews the four bolts in the reading light and air-vent panel over seats 31 and 32 Much to the consternation (or cowardice, according to El Polaco) of those travelling with the barra for the first time, he then removes the casing from the roof, leaving everything exposed, everything being the jumble of wires and cables that are usually hidden from public view Hidden and forgotten about, which is how the barra feel they’re treated by society ‘Before we hide it, we have to wrap it up in something… We need a hat,’ El Polaco says, and one of his disciples snatches a cap off a younger barra’s head   ‘Everyone has to muck in here, compadre,’ the timid young lad is told, as he watches his blue cap, red ‘U’ embroidered on the front, disappear into a sea of twenty-year-old hands   El Polaco carefully wraps the grenade up in the cap That’s right, the grenade A weapon of war We have a miniature bomb on the bus with us A genuine piece of munition that someone stole, we’re told, from the army when doing military service   ‘They’re amazingly easy to launch You just pull this pin, release the safety catch with your teeth and chuck it,’ one of the more experienced barra adds calmly Fear paralyses the rest of us: football fans who’ve left behind parents and girlfriends, neighbourhood friends, younger brothers, team posters on bedroom walls, a flag commemorating last year’s league title, a collection of match tickets in the bedside drawer All left behind, at home, a place that seems increasingly far away All to go on an away trip abroad for the first time All for the team   With the speed and dexterity of a practised pickpocket, El Polaco tucks the hat-explosive in among the cables and screws the panel back in place He leaves not a trace Nothing to suggest that above

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Ten Years at Garage Moscow

Art Review

November 2018

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art Review

November 2018

When I arrive in Moscow, I am picked up from the airport by Roman, a patriotic taxi driver sent to collect me courtesy of...
Becoming Alice Neel

Art

August 2017

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art

August 2017

From the first time I saw Alice Neel’s portraits, I wanted to see the world as she did. Neel was the Matisse of the...

READ NEXT

Interview

Issue No. 1

Interview with André Schiffrin

Jacques Testard

Gwénaël Pouliquen

Interview

Issue No. 1

André Schiffrin founded non-profit publishing house The New Press in 1990 after an acrimonious split with Random House –...

Interview

March 2017

Interview with Rodrigo Hasbún

Enea Zaramella

Rodrigo Hasbún

TR. Sophie Hughes

Interview

March 2017

Rodrigo Hasbún (born Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1981) has published two novels and a collection of short stories; he was selected...

poetry

October 2013

Steam

Jon Stone

poetry

October 2013

Steam in the changing rooms, stripping off after the race, breathes like an engine. The air is filled up...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required