Literature

Nicholas Thoburn's "Anti-Book" is a 'book' that interrogates the book-form. In his critique of this beloved commodity, Thoburn challenges our understanding of books as transcendent moral and aesthetic objects unsullied by commerce. Rather, he says, books are pulsing with capitalist relations. Thoburn proposes instead a "communism of textual matter". White Fungus editor Ron Hanson has been corresponding with Thoburn and, in the first of a series of articles based on this communication, introduces Thoburn's concept of the anti-book and its historical precedents.

New Zealand's Pink and White Terraces were dubbed the "8th wonder of the world." But in 1886, in a single night of volcanic destruction, they were forever lost to the world. Tim Bollinger wrote about the Terraces and their storied history for White Fungus.

Paul Celan is often called the greatest of postwar European poets. Barry Schwabsky looks back on Celan's life and work following the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth, and the 50th of his death.