Alina Simone

Contributor to PRI's The World

Alina Simone is a writer based in New York. She tends to favor marginalia over plot.

I actually started my career as an indie-rock singer and spent most of my time in far-flung bars and basements from Olympia, Washington to Arkhangelsk, Russia, where I was psyched to learn there are rock clubs even in the Arctic Circle. Perhaps it was these years spent in distant hidey-holes singing to four forlorn Swedes that keeps me inspired, as a writer, to seek out stories that are unusual, arcane and perhaps interesting only to me.

In addition to reporting for PRI's The World, I am the author of the essay collection, You Must Go and Win, and the novel, Note to Self (both published by Faber). My writing has also appeared in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, among other places. 

A man stands under a tent talking to people sitting down

This Brooklyn pop-up school taps immigrants’ expertise — by making them teachers

Immigrant researchers and professors must often take low-paid "survival jobs" in the US. At Brooklyn's summer Open Air University, they're sharing their niche expertise.

This Brooklyn pop-up school taps immigrants’ expertise — by making them teachers
fake plants

Cashing in on the weed industry

Cashing in on the weed industry
Wigs hung on a wall.

This Orthodox Jewish wig shop in Brooklyn says covering hair doesn’t mean ‘you have to be ugly’ 

This Orthodox Jewish wig shop in Brooklyn says covering hair doesn’t mean ‘you have to be ugly’ 
A KGB agent disguise kit is shown with make-up and a wig.

You can take selfies with once-secret KGB spycraft at this NY museum

You can take selfies with once-secret KGB spycraft at this NY museum
Alina Simone's daughter Zoe teaches her Russian-speaking grandfather some basic Chinese.

Russian-speaking New Yorker would rather her daughter learn Chinese

Russian-speaking New Yorker would rather her daughter learn Chinese
A protester holds up a sign at an anti-Trump demonstration in Washington DC.

The Putinization of Donald Trump

Many Russians perceive Donald Trump as an American version of Vladimir Putin. It's partly based on Trump's bombastic rhetoric, but also on how his speeches and tweets are translated into Russian.

The Putinization of Donald Trump
Linguist Edward Vajda with a Ket woman in her home village in Siberia, Russia.

Is this remote Siberian language an ancestor to Navajo?

Linguist Edward Vajda went to Siberia with a hunch. He returned with evidence linking a remote Siberian language with Navajo and other Athabaskan languages.

Is this remote Siberian language an ancestor to Navajo?
Bunched up computer wires.

The strange history of ransomware

The first ransomware virus was unleashed in 1989 — so WannaCry is hardly a new idea. But it has some novel techniques.

The strange history of ransomware
Explorers Tom and Tina Sjogren stand in front of a blackboard at a makers space.

Dreaming of a DIY mission to Mars

NASA and high-tech billionaires aren't the only ones who want to get to the red planet.

Dreaming of a DIY mission to Mars
For nine years, Shou Hatori ran a nighttime moving company that helped people disappear in Japan.

Japan's 'evaporated people' have become an obsession for this French couple

In Japan, it's thought that thousands of people disappear themselves, driven underground by the stigma of debt, job loss, even failing an exam.

Japan's 'evaporated people' have become an obsession for this French couple
Limanol Adams, 27, posing with cut outs of a popular Korean boy band EXO.

The next K-Pop sensation could come out of New York City

What’s the word most people associate with the country of South Korea? K-pop. At least according to one survey conducted in Korea last year.

The next K-Pop sensation could come out of New York City
Kelly Wong is one of the lion dance instructors at the New York Chinese Freemasons Athletic Club. Originally founded as a fraternal society, the Freemasons were among the first troupes in Chinatown to train women to lion dance.

In New York's Lunar New Year parade, women are breaking barriers as lion dancers

Back in the 1960s, there were fewer than 10 lion dancer troupes participating in the Lunar New Year parade in New York's China. Today it’s more like 40 or 50.

In New York's Lunar New Year parade, women are breaking barriers as lion dancers
Romance scammers

Victims of online romance scams, there's a place you can go for help

Victims of online romance scams suffer some of the highest financial losses of any internet-based crimes, the FBI says.

Victims of online romance scams, there's a place you can go for help
Celine Dion became a part owner of Schwartz's of Montreal in 2012.

Celine Dion is an unlikely savior of Montreal’s classic Jewish deli

Around the US, Jewish delis have fallen on hard times. But the one of the oldest delis in Canada — Schwartz’s of Montreal — has an unlikely savior.

Celine Dion is an unlikely savior of Montreal’s classic Jewish deli
The Akwesasne Freedom School

At this school in upstate New York, students are free to speak Mohawk

For more than 100 years, the governments of both the United States and Canada forcibly assimilated generations of Native people by taking their children and sending them off to English-only boarding schools — a process the pushed the majority of indigenous languages to the brink of extinction. More than 35 years ago, a small Mohawk tribe in New York decided to fight back — by creating a school of its own.

At this school in upstate New York, students are free to speak Mohawk