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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....

VISA GODS   In this story, Eurydice is dark & deadly & has lived all her life in Hades In this story, Orpheus plays the drums   A semester-at-sea program  Tamil refugee solidarity group makes them meet Orpheus is ensnared watching the way she talks with her hands and laughs with her eyes and speaks with an accent he has never taken to bed Skin sun-kissed as cinnamon stick, long hair that anchors storms, a mouth filled with the coarsest curses on land Gossip says it was the spice in her meals, it may well have been the sex   For the sake of this story, Orpheus has to bring her into the first world In his contract with the overlords there’s no clause about looking back, about trust, about hearing the footsteps of the loved one before walking ahead— that is not a white people thing at all   Here, Orpheus must leave Eurydice must follow   In other words, Eurydice, to smuggle their love, must screw her way into Europe   Eurydice must cross the seas, pass through border controls, fight for a Schengen, chant prayers for her visa, borrow recklessly with her bank, get her passport stamped She must do this six hundred times over a lifetime   Hostage to nation-state, our man Orpheus must wait, must will himself to live for a woman who weeps when she is away, weeps when it’s time to leave, weeps when she cannot come, who weeps in his arms because their love story is not in their hands   Orpheus no longer plays the drums   Now, there is no music in his life— only the silence at parting, the white noise of waiting     A CAT CLOSING HER EYES   Poonai kanmoodi kondaal, Poolokam irundu vidaathu When a cat shuts its eyes, the world does not turn dark   It is said that mothers have a proverb for every occasion— amma recycled the same one to see me through everything   To tackle my teenage tantrums Poonai kanmoodi kondaal Your sulking does not affect me, girl!   To combat my depression Poonai kanmoodi kondaal Just stop wallowing in your sorrows, girl!   To stop me giving up Poonai kanmoodi kondaal The world will move on without you, girl!   Most of all, to put me together, heartbreak after heartbreak Poonai kanmoodi kondaal He doesn’t see you, girl, you are beautiful, men will find you, and you will find love!     INDIA IS MY COUNTRY   Like the fascist who led us to this ruin, death has also learnt to wear a different disguise these days   No heavy as sorrow

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...

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feature

November 2015

Streets of Contradiction

feature

November 2015

Jerusalem has a remarkably cohesive identity, in architectural terms. Every building, from the Western Wall to the sleek hotels...

fiction

July 2012

Whatever Happened To Harold Absalon?

Simon Okotie

fiction

July 2012

1. The hotel lobby was both cleansed and fragrant, as was the receptionist speaking softly on the phone behind...

Interview

November 2016

Interview with Dodie Bellamy

Lucy Ives

Interview

November 2016

The summer of 2016 was for me the Summer of Dodie Bellamy. I am a New York resident, but...

 

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