1/ Dear readers, The Dial is evolving. You talked, we listened — and have made a few changes to our magazine.

unexpected and very nice to have a piece I wrote for the dial about baseball last year selected for this anthology! ⚾ the piece is here: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

In “Burial at Sea,” a short story by Karim Kattan set in Palestine in the summer of 2019, the narrator loses a lover on a cruise vacation and reckons with their grief: www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

I spoke to the wonderful Karim Kattan about his recent stories for @thedialmag.bsky.social and why horror is a genre that speaks to the Palestinian experience: "You’re always trapped in a time that you can’t get free of.” Read the full conversation here: www.thedial.world/articles/the...

🤩 Delighted to say my translation of Klára Vlasáková’s short story “The Cells” was published today as part of @thedialmag.bsky.social’s Fiction issue: bit.ly/4oQPrPB

"I read of dogs furiously digging holes in the ground to escape the 35-degree heat. Children fainting during assembly early in the morning." @arielsaramandi.bsky.social for @thedialmag.bsky.social: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

What place is there for fiction when reality demands our constant attention? The writers in our fiction issue this month give possible answers. @thedialmag.bsky.social www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

In Mauritius, jellyfish are dying, the seas are boiling; the climate dystopia we fear for the future has already arrived, Ariel Saramandi writes: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

"In the nearby women’s detention facility at Mezzeh Military Airport in Damascus, small clay heart decorations inscribed with messages were hanging alongside crayon-colored drawings of peaceful homelife — a kitchen table, a garden, a child’s bedroom." @thedialmag www.thedial.world/articles/new...

More than 100 aid agencies warn of mass starvation in Gaza. Why has famine become a modern tool of war? Last year, Sarah Nouwen talked with the executive director of the World Peace Foundation and the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food: www.thedial.world/articles/sta...

The Dial is a super mag, which I've had the pleasure of contributing to a couple of times. For its summer reading list I recommended one book I can't stop thinking about – Dirty Work by @epress.bsky.social Check out the full list and donate to support unique and independent journalism :)

Donate to The Dial before Aug. 1 and you’ll receive our exclusive reading list of more than 50 titles! As a nonprofit, we are proud to offer all our articles to readers for free. Your support allow us to continue to make our work accessible to all. Donate today: www.thedial.world/summer-readi...

"For Coetzee, Speaking in Tongues is part of a larger project of fighting the hegemony of English in world literature. It’s a worthy cause, but unfortunately his approach to it is both highly idiosyncratic and highly unproductive." A thoughtful critique from Carey Baraka for @thedialmag.bsky.social

Fantastic news and great work by Ryan Lenora Brown & Majirata Latela for @thedialmag.bsky.social !

On Monday, Israel struck Iran’s Evin prison, known for the intellectuals, activists, artists and students who have served time there—many of whom are fighting for democracy. In 2024, we published five Iranian women’s accounts of their life behind bars in Evin. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

“I’m happy that you called, ah, you see, it’s nice when you remember.” The subtle gut-punch of this new fiction by Valérie Mréjen (tr. by Katie Assef) on @thedialmag.bsky.social www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

While Donald Trump makes noises about colonizing Greenland and Canada, son-in-law Jared Kushner is busy developing a luxury resort on an island off the coast of Albania. Marzio Mian visited Sazan and talked with Kushner to learn more about the development: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

"Whatever sort of intelligence I have stored in my muscles flared to life to avoid a harmless bump in upstate New York, fearing that it might pose the same danger as the bump in the Talaeiah minefield." Amir Ahmadi Arian on war zone scars and raising a son. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

A pleasure to translate the text for Ophélie Loubat's powerful photo essay on becoming a mother without a father for our latest issue, Fathers.

1/ Our June issue explores the realm of fatherhood, and questions of legacy, ownership and indebtedness. www.thedial.world/issue-29

Shocked and honoured to have been named runner up in the Public Discourse category of the @europeanpressprize.bsky.social for my piece Memory Machines A huge thanks to all at @thedialmag.bsky.social for commissioning & for their tremendous support, and to all at the European Press Prize ✨️

We’re thrilled that #PENPresents & #PENTranslates award-winner Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, trans. from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi has won the #InternationalBooker2025, the first work translated from Kannada to appear on the @thebookerprizes.bsky.social shortlist. Congratulations to the winners!

“Unfortunately, the timing is great for American readers,” Lily Meyer writes. “Mafalda’s character-defining question to her father — ‘Can you explain why humanity is a disaster?’ — is one I ask myself every day as I read the news.” www.thedial.world/articles/new...

In Georgia’s Adjara highlands, a traditional way of life is slowly disappearing. Natela Grigalashvili photographed one pastoral nomadic community over 10 years to explore how people adapt to changing circumstances and create new meaning in today’s world: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

In "I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness," Irene Solà explores a young bride’s bargain with the devil that reverberates through generations of women in her family. Translated by Mara Faye Lethem. www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

Only 30 years ago, members of an African music troupe were exhibited at a zoo, alongside animals, and asked to perform for visitors. Christopher Clark tells the story of Bamboula’s Village, and the fight to get the musicians out. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Our May issue, Spectacle, examines the absurd & harmful things people do for attention, money & power. We’ll bring you a report from the last human zoo in France, an essay on why LinkedIn is so cringey, translated fiction about “dealings with the devil” & more: www.thedial.world/articles/iss...

1/ Switzerland has enough bunkers to shelter 9 million residents in case of a crisis. Jessi Jezewska Stevens goes underground to see this civilian protection system, and reports on why the country has redoubled their interest in defense. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

In "Sleep Phase," Mohamed Kheir tells the story of an intellectual who is released from jail in Cairo and struggles to understand the contours of his new freedom in a changed city. Read an excerpt, translated by Robin Moger: www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

“Salt has no scent. What you smell is decomposing algae.” A decade ago, Karim Kattan wrote a short story set in Gaza. The translation I did is now live on @thedialmag.bsky.social and it rings so differently today. Read and reflect on the coruscating thing here: www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

Excited to announce that I've been shortlisted for the Public Discourse Award at the @europeanpressprize.bsky.social for my article Memory Machines, originally commissioned by @thedialmag.bsky.social Honoured to be in such great company on the shortlist www.europeanpressprize.com/shortlists/y...

By popular request, we're going to start posting the book / TV / film / Other Culture Things we've recommended on the pod each week. This week, we recommended this essay in @thedialmag.bsky.social by Bartolomeo Sala about how farming gets depicted in fiction: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

An important contribution to the debate on aid and development you won't have read anywhere else 👇

What films and novels get wrong (and right) about farming today, by @bartolomeosala.bsky.social ft. Creation Lake, As Bestas, Alcarras and Living Things www.thedial.world/articles/new...

1/ In January, rebels backed by Rwanda took over the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where brutal fighting left at least 900 people dead. Emmet Livingstone shares scenes from the fall of the Goma: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

1/ Argentina’s president Javier Milei is hacking away at reproductive rights. Anita Pouchard Serra and @nataliealcoba.bsky.social document how access to abortion has eroded under Milei’s “chainsaw” spending cuts. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

For @thedialmag.bsky.social, Caitlin Chandler attended this year’s Munich Security Conference — her dispatch, co-published with The New York Review of Books, gives us a window into a world in which weapons spending trumps all else www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Read "The Shroud," a beautiful story from the collection, at @thedialmag.bsky.social www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

1/ The gospel according to whom? Religious dogma may no longer have the same hold on society, but other forms of certainty now fill the void — tradition, digital echo chambers, political leaders who “tell it like it is.” www.thedial.world/issue-26

1/ In Nigeria, LGBTQ+ people have no legal protections, and transphobia and homophobia are common. The queer community has come to accept that to live safely as themselves, they’ll have to do so underground. Damisola Sulaiman reports from Lagos: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

How is Geneva, home to the U.N. and hundreds of NGOs and international organizations, grappling with Trump's foreign aid freeze? Isabelle Mayault reports from the “capital of international development” for @thedialmag.bsky.social www.thedial.world/articles/sta...

1/ “If a dream is a parallel reality, what can it reveal about the collective mind and political consciousness during war?” Mireille Juchau asks. Juchau combed through the dream journals of Ukrainians and was captivated by their raw testimonies: www.thedial.world/articles/nen...

What happens when the left takes power with a seeming revolutionary mandate—to change the constitution and bury neoliberalism—but the new constitution fails, and they're stuck running the same old state? How should critics of the state approach governing? It's a fascinating moment in Chile

Debates about what we owe the dead have persisted for millennia, yet the law offers incomplete and unsatisfying answers. For @thedialmag.bsky.social, I wrote about the rights of the dead and the legal scholars and forensic anthropologists who work to protect them. www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

Amanda Sperber attended a “multicultural” ball in honor of U.S. President Donald Trump, where Ugandan royalty sipped champagne and the former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro virtually toasted the pardoning of January 6 rioters. Read her dispatch: www.thedial.world/articles/sta...

In FP's latest collaboration with @thedialmag.bsky.social, Lavender Au reports on the challenges transgender people in China face in obtaining gender-affirming care.

From China, Lavender Au reports on a government policy that makes gender transitions near impossible for many: to have surgery, a person needs parental consent, no matter their age. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

"Their requests for images of plants and flowers from warmer climates remind me of astronauts, who often say nature is what they miss most about Earth." Francesca Mastruzzo on writing to Russian political prisoners, translated for @thedialmag.bsky.social www.thedial.world/articles/new...