The White Review

About The White Review

The White Review is a London arts and literature magazine — published three times a year in print with monthly online editions, publishing fiction, essays, interviews with writers and artists, poetry, and series of artworks. Launched in London in February 2011 by writer and editor Benjamin Eastham and Fitzcarraldo publisher Jacques Testard, it set out to provide "a space for a new generation to express itself unconstrained by form, subject or genre." Its website is thewhitereview.org.

The magazine has featured writers and artists such as Paul Murray, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Sally Rooney and Olga Tokarczuk. In September 2023 its board announced that, facing rising costs and the loss of UK state funding, the magazine would not be published "for an indefinite period" — an indefinite hiatus after its 33rd print issue in June 2022.

Launched in February 2011

The White Review launched in London in February 2011 — founded by writer and editor Benjamin Eastham and Jacques Testard, the publisher of Fitzcarraldo Editions. Their founding aim was to provide "a space for a new generation to express itself without regard for form, subject, or genre": a platform for emerging writers and artists unconstrained by commercial or conventional expectations.

The magazine was conceived as both print and online: triannual print editions of around 200 pages, with monthly online editions carrying new work between issues.

Editorial Scope: Fiction, Essays, Poetry, Art

The White Review publishes fiction, essays, roundtable discussions, interviews with writers and artists, poetry, and series of artworks. Its pages brought together new British and Irish writing with international literature in translation — featuring, over its run, Paul Murray, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Sally Rooney, Olga Tokarczuk, Saidiya Hartman, Tessa Hadley and many others.

The magazine's distinctive white covers and generous design made each issue an art object in itself — a physical embodiment of its commitment to the aesthetic as well as the literary.

The White Review Short Story Prize

The magazine ran the White Review Short Story Prize, championing new short fiction: Vanessa Onwuemezi won the 2019 prize, and the award became one of the respected launchpads for emerging writers in the UK. The prize reflected the magazine's founding mission — giving a new generation the space to express itself.

A Non-Profit Model

The White Review operated as a non-profit journal, supported between 2011 and 2021 by Arts Council England funding — which, in the board's words, provided "a substantial portion of its annual budget." That public funding recognised the magazine's cultural significance: a platform for new writing that the commercial market would not sustain.

The Hiatus, September 2023

On 27 September 2023 the board announced that the magazine faced an uncertain future due to rising costs and the loss of UK state funding. Arts Council England had denied the non-profit journal's funding bids for three years in a row. "Despite our best efforts," the board stated, "the associated effects of the cost of living crisis and the increase in production costs, in tandem with reduced funding, has meant that the White Review has not been able to publish a print issue since No 33 in June 2022."

The board of trustees "begun a period of deliberation on the magazine's future," thanking "our incredibly brilliant writers and artists, both past and present." Outgoing editors Rosanna McLaughlin, Izabella Scott and Skye Arundhati Thomas collaborated on one final project: an anthology of new literature in translation financed by the Jan Michalski Foundation.

The White Review's Legacy

Across 33 print issues and more than a decade of online publishing, The White Review was one of the defining literary magazines of its generation — the platform that published Sally Rooney, Caleb Azumah Nelson and Olga Tokarczuk alongside emerging voices, and that treated new writing with the seriousness and beauty it deserved.

Whether the hiatus ends or the magazine's story closes with No 33, its achievement stands: a space for a new generation, unconstrained by form, subject or genre — at thewhitereview.org.

Ben Eastham, Jacques Testard and La Revue Blanche

The White Review was founded in February 2011 by Ben Eastham and Jacques Testard — Testard would go on to co-found Fitzcarraldo Editions, the publisher that became synonymous with translated literary fiction in Britain. The two founders were young, ambitious and impatient with the constraints of the existing literary press, and they set out to build a magazine that would give a new generation of writers and artists room to breathe.

The name was a homage: La Revue Blanche, the French review published from 1889 to 1903, had been one of the great avant-garde periodicals of its era, publishing Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Proust and Gide. By borrowing the name, Eastham and Testard were placing their new magazine in a lineage of artistic daring — and signalling that a review could be as much a work of art as the work it published.

The magazine appeared as a quarterly in print — triannual, three issues a year — with a monthly online edition, published from London at thewhitereview.org. It was, from the first, a non-profit enterprise, sustained by grants, patronage and the goodwill of its contributors rather than by commercial publishing economics.

A Space Unconstrained by Form

The founders' stated aim was to create 'a space for a new generation to express itself unconstrained by form, subject or genre' — and the magazine honoured that brief across fiction, essays, interviews, poetry and artworks. The White Review published some of the most interesting writers and artists of its generation. Its contributors ran from established names to debut novelists and emerging visual artists — figures such as Bennett, Russell, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Fernanda Melchor, Sally Rooney, Brandon Taylor, Anne Carson and Vivian Cohen appearing across its fiction, essays, interviews, poetry and artworks.

The magazine's short story prize and poets' prize became important staging posts for emerging talent, offering new authors a route into print that bypassed the usual gatekeepers. For twelve years The White Review was one of the liveliest places in British letters: a quarterly that treated fiction, poetry and visual art as equal partners, and that gave young writers the long-form space the mainstream press rarely allowed.

Day-to-day operations were paused in September 2023, as funding pressures and the cost-of-living crisis made the non-profit model unsustainable in its existing form, with the board consulting on the magazine's future. The pause was widely mourned by readers who had followed the quarterly since its 2011 debut.

Twelve Years, 2011–2023

For twelve years, The White Review occupied a distinctive place in British literary culture: too serious to be a lifestyle magazine, too visually ambitious to be a conventional literary quarterly, and too independent to answer to anyone but its editors and its board. Founded in February 2011 by Ben Eastham and Jacques Testard, it ran as a triannual print quarterly with a monthly online edition until day-to-day operations were paused in September 2023.

The pause was a product of its economics. As a non-profit, the magazine had always depended on grants, patronage and goodwill rather than commercial revenue — a model that made its editorial independence possible, but that left it exposed when funding tightened and the cost-of-living crisis squeezed every part of the cultural sector. The board began consulting on the magazine's future, and the quarterly fell silent.

What it left behind was a substantial body of work: twelve years of fiction, essays, interviews, poetry and artworks; two prizes that launched careers; and a generation of writers and artists for whom publication in The White Review had been a formative moment. Whether the title returns in a new form remains, as of the pause, a question for its board — but the archive of what Eastham and Testard built stands as one of the defining literary projects of the 2010s and early 2020s.