No Common Ground — The Dial A Ukrainian reporter reflects on more than a decade covering U.S. elections.

Ukrainian reporter Nataliya Gumenyuk has covered U.S. elections for more than a decade. The thing that’s shocked her most is the extent to which the conversation around access to health care and education has been radicalized. To Europeans, that’s simply what people expect from a functioning state.

Screenshot from the page of The Dial where María García Díaz's translations, referred to in the post, are published

Thanks to @thedialmag.bsky.social for publishing these poems - small moments scattered into glistening shards of affect - by Asturian poet María García Díaz, from her ridiculously beautiful collection All That Flows Is Capital (...yet to be published in English!)

www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

Preparing for an Invasion — The Dial Taiwan goes it alone.

As China increases its threats toward Taiwan, people on the island are preparing for invasion. Michelle Kuo attends two civil-defense courses, learning how to pack gauze into open wounds, identify Chinese disinformation campaigns and more. Can Taiwan save itself? www.thedial.world/articles/new...

The Global Romcom — The Dial Narratives about the genre’s demise miss what's on offer around the world.

In Hollywood, you’re more likely to find movies about love’s delusions than happily ever after. Elsewhere in the world, romcoms are still one of the most popular genres. Rebecca Liu on what countries like Spain, Iran and France are doing differently: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Diary From Lebanon — The Dial A month of war has pushed the country past its physical and psychological limits.

6/6 Read entries from Justin Salhani’s diary from war: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

5/ Saturday, March 21: "My barber, a guy in his 30s, said he was furious with Hezbollah when they reentered the war on March 2 … But now that they are still fighting, he’s changed his mind. 'If it is between the resistance and Israel, I choose the resistance,' he said."

4/ Thursday, March 19: "Usually there are fewer strikes when the weather is bad and the sky is not clear. But of course, displaced people are outside sleeping in tents or sometimes even without tents. You might get some peace, but at what cost?"

3/ Monday, March 9: "Lately I’ve received messages from friends and family asking if I can leave. … It’s not an easy thing to think about — what’s my limit, our limit? This is a conversation we have a lot."

2/ Tuesday, March 3: "My neighborhood, Ras Beirut in the northwest of Beirut, is jam-packed; there are cars everywhere. In every alley, displaced people are walking around looking for somewhere to live."

Diary From Lebanon — The Dial A month of war has pushed the country past its physical and psychological limits.

1/ In Lebanon, more than 1.2 million people have been displaced and 1,400 killed since the war between Israel and Hezbollah began in March. @justinsalhani.bsky.social shares one month of diary entries about what it’s been like living and working in Beirut. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

The Quiet Powerbroker — The Dial Who really controls international debt?

As of 2024, 61 developing countries spent more than 10 percent of their government revenue on debt interest payments. More often than not foreign creditors fail to consider the long-term interests of debtor states. Sven Van Mourik investigates why: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

"Only a Little While Here" by María Ospina — The Dial An excerpt.

In "Only a Little While Here," a novel about migration and displacement, María Ospina tells the story of one beetle’s accidental journey across the Colombian cordillera via a leaf of chard — and the woman who brought her to Bogota without meaning to. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

The Quiet Powerbroker — The Dial Who really controls international debt?

Some 3.4 billion people live in countries where more money is spent on foreign debt interest than health or education. Financial historian Sven Van Mourik examines how one secretive institution, The Paris Club, has steered the destinies of many such countries—often not for the better.

In Search of Wikipedia’s Saviors — The Dial Can Tom, Betty, Patricia and Isidora rescue the site from AI?

Sustaining the network of administrators is essential to Wikipedia’s survival. Imogen West-Knights spoke with volunteer editors powering the online encyclopedia—one tweak at a time: the-dial-magazine.squarespace.com/articles/new...

Making It In Bollywood — The Dial Who gets to be a star in India?

Thousands of actors hoping to make it big in Bollywood are competing for relatively few roles. Taran Khan reports from Aram Nagar, a neighborhood in Mumbai filled where working-class actors line up for casting-calls, spend hours at the gym and wait for a callback. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Blood and Oil — The Dial What extraction did to Nigeria.

2/ “In some communities, a generation has grown up without any memory of pristine water or air,” Noo Saro-Wiwa writes, “and given their lack of education, little reason to mourn it.” www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Blood and Oil — The Dial What extraction did to Nigeria.

1/ Oil extraction has devastated the ecosystem in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, and upended the lives of the communities who depended on it. Noo Saro-Wiwa, a writer from Oginoland, reflects on what it’s like to see your home transformed for “black gold.” www.thedial.world/articles/new...

The Stigma of Schizophrenia — The Dial A conversation with Amanda Marton Ramaciotti about exploring her mother’s schizophrenia it — as a journalist and a daughter.

Growing up, Amanda Marton Ramaciotti knew that her mother was different from other mothers. She had schizophrenia. With her mother’s diagnosis came social stigma and fear. In an interview with The Dial, Marton Ramaciotti discusses what led her to explore the disease in her writing.

A poem by Carmien Michels — The Dial "The Tavistock"

“This hotel with an old dress on / asks why I call her faded glory” Read Carmien Michels’ poem, “The Tavistock,” translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison.
www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

I Don’t Want to Be Like You — The Dial In 1994, my mother had her first psychotic break.

“How does the absence of the mother affect a child?” Amanda Marton Ramaciotti asks. In this essay, Marton Ramaciotti writes about adoring her mother while fearing schizophrenia, the disease that made her leave. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

On Gout — The Dial What the disease taught me about language, inheritance and pain.

Jan Steyn is a translator. He also lives with gout. In this essay, Steyn reflects on chronic illness, translating Afrikaans, and what it means to move between languages and bodies. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

"Their Name is Piehsak" found a nice spot in the form of an online photo-essay in The Dial. All the Khmer that are still displaced thank The Dial for not forgetting them.

Chokepoint Politics — The Dial Global maritime shipping is riddled with obstacles that slow down logistics, some of which are intentionally implemented to increase profit.

“Mobility at sea (and indeed elsewhere) requires constantly navigating chokepoints,” Jatin Dua writes. “Chokepoints are a reminder that while our world may seem more and more connected, it is also in some ways more stuck.” www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Born in a Refugee Camp — The Dial Clashes along the Cambodia-Thailand border have displaced many Cambodian civilians.

The clashes along the Cambodian-Thailand border last year have displaced more than 500,000 people on both sides. In December, John Vink visited 18 locations—pagodas, markets, settlements and camps—where Cambodian civilians sought refuge. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Israel's Digital Occupation — The Dial Lebanon has become a laboratory for a new age of warfare.

In southern Lebanon, the Israeli military is using drones to surveil and control civilians who they believe are associated with Hezbollah without occupying the territory; these drones also conduct lethal strikes. Some scholars have declared this effort a “digital occupation.” Justin Salhani reports.

Very dystopian timing. I’ve been working on this since November.

Thanks @thedialmag.bsky.social

Lea Ypi, Joy Williams and Julia Widelocha on Translation — The Dial A conversation from the Bergen International Literary Festival.

In a conversation at the Bergen International Literary Festival, Albanian author Lea Ypi and American poet Joy Williams discussed translations of their work with Polish translator Julia Wiedlocha—and how they feel about big changes to their texts and being translated by AI.

The Dead End — The Dial A short story.

In Nasim Marashi's short story, “The Dead End,” Samaneh’s father returns home after eight years in prison for resisting the Iranian regime. “I wondered how home would look with Dad in it or how Dad would look in here. What clothes would he wear? Where would he sit?” www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

Sour Cherry Pit — The Dial A short story.

In Iranian writer Houshang Moradi Kermani’s tender short story, a father finds himself in hospital after letting his son put a sour cherry pit in his ear. Read “Sour Cherry Pit,” translated by Poupeh Missaghi: www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

The Treachery of Translation — The Dial Three novels explore the power of translation.

In a review of Yáng Shuāng-zǐ's novel "Taiwan Travelogue," and two other books featuring translators as central characters, Irina Dumitrescu examines the age-old trope of translation as an act of fraud: www.thedial.world/articles/new...