Alia Dastagir Interview

Matt Crawford speaks with Alia Dastagir, an award-winning journalist and author of For Those Who Have Confused You to be a Person. Part memoir, part cultural commentary, her book is a searing meditation on identity, invisibility, and the hunger for dignity in a fractured world. Alia shares how years of reporting on trauma, injustice, and inequity shaped her voice—and how this book became a personal reckoning. Together, we explore what it means to write truthfully when the world demands silence, how journalism and literature diverge when dealing with human suffering, and why empathy alone is never enough. This is a conversation for anyone who has ever felt unseen—and anyone who wants to see more clearly.