Editors’ Note
Issue 12: Sex
JANUARY 9, 2024
“Brace for a difficult crossing,” the Kazakh poet Shakarim Qudaiberdyuly warns in his sensual poem, “Youth,” which appears in English for the first time in this issue. Originally composed in 1879 and lovingly, experimentally translated by Sabrina Jaszi, Mirgul Kali, and Ena Selimović — the minds behind the literary translation collective Turkoslavia — the poem captures the intimacy and desperation of sex and love: “Shirking duties, / Chasing revelry. / Shameless fool, / Ripping out your soul for her.” Qudaiberdyuly’s words also remind us that this new year is likely to be full of new heartbreaks and difficult crossings as we continue to document the injustices unfolding around the world.
This issue brings you several first-hand accounts of women who have seen their freedoms curtailed. We are proud to publish letters from women jailed in Iran’s notorious Evin prison; originally reported by Ghazal Golshiri for Le Monde and translated for The Dial by Katie Assef, the letters are rare messages from Iran's imprisoned human-rights defenders. “Do you hear the distant sound cracking of Iran’s wall of fear?” Narges Mohammadi writes. “Soon, we will hear it brought down by the implacable will, strength and unrelenting determination of the Iranian people.”
Emily Fishbein and Nu Nu Lusan bring readers an oral history of women who are navigating life after the military coup in Myanmar, where it is not uncommon to be forced into sex work in order to stay alive. Rachel Nolan reports on one Guatemalan mother’s long fight to find her abducted daughter, who was kidnapped as a toddler and illegally adopted in the U.S. Photographer Juliette Pavy takes us to Greenland, where the Danish government is belatedly being brought to account for its forced sterilization campaign of Inuit girls in the ’60s. And from the U.K., Sian Norris exposes how phone data is being used to prosecute women who seek abortions — and how sometimes, even a Google search has been enough to prove their guilt.
The issue also features stories of resilience. From the Indian state of Gujarat, Saumya Roy traces one Hindu-Muslim couple’s improbable love story, documenting their decade-long quest to combat far-right forces that tried and failed to break their bond. Yung In Chae and Spencer Lee-Lenfield assess the evolution of South Korea’s bihon communities, led by young feminists who reject societal pressures to marry and embrace alternatives to the traditional nuclear family.
No matter how difficult the crossing, we will be here to document the journey.
– The Editors