Samanth Subramanian
LightNews LightNews
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
Samanth Subramanian
@samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
820 followers 250 following 1.4K posts
Words in the Guardian, the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and others. Books on fish, Sri Lanka, and JBS Haldane. Newsletter: http://samanth.substack.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
On the occasion of the 15th-year reissue of my first book, I rambled a little on my Substack about its fortuitous backstory:

samanth.substack.com/p/multi-stor...
multi-storied #46: Old fish, new bottle
Any young boy or girl setting out in the world must have questions about how to go about writing their first book.
samanth.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 7:30 AM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
columbiagr.bsky.social
“The safety of the cables in the ocean is a national security issue, a precondition for the economy, and a matter of literal life and death”

🎧ICYMI: The Guardian Long Read podcast features an excerpt from @samanthsubramanian.bsky.social’s THE WEB BENEATH THE WAVES
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...
Extremely offline: what happened when a Pacific island was cut off from the internet
Podcast Episode · The Audio Long Read · 07/11/2025 · 33m
podcasts.apple.com
November 12, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
siddharthamitter.bsky.social
Good wishes to @shainin.bsky.social, @samanthsubramanian.bsky.social, @nesrinemalik.bsky.social, Negar Azimi and all involved in @equatormag.bsky.social, which launches with its first batch of articles today:

www.equator.org
EQUATOR
Equator is a magazine of politics, culture and art.
www.equator.org
October 29, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
disabilityarts.bsky.social
Pankaj Mishra and Nesrine Malik, the founding editors of new magazine Equator discuss its ambition to depict a new world that Western narratives have neglected.

When - 31 Oct
Where - London
Cost - From £20

disabilityarts.online/events/panka...
A man stands in front of a bookshelf filled with old books, wearing a dark blazer looking at the camera with a slight smile.
October 24, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
columbiagr.bsky.social
Just how delicate is the Internet?

After the AWS outage, @samanthsubramanian.bsky.social joins @lizzieohreally.bsky.social on the What Next: TBD podcast to explain how fragile the Internet's infrastructure really is, and how much that should worry us. 🎧
slate.com/podcasts/wha...
The AWS Outage is Only the Beginning
How the AWS outage kept both engineers and people with very expensive mattresses up at night.
slate.com
October 24, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
philippeauclair.bsky.social
What happens when a whole country finds itself internet-less? Superb long-read by @samanthsubramanian.bsky.social, who visited Tonga after a volcanic eruption cut the cable that linked the archipelago to the rest of the world.
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...
Extremely offline: what happened when a Pacific island was cut off from the internet | Samanth Subramanian
A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world – and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life
www.theguardian.com
October 14, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
catharsistheater.bsky.social
1/5
🌋 In 2022, a volcanic eruption tore apart Tonga’s only internet cables. Overnight, a nation was plunged into silence.
What happens when the fragile threads that bind us snap?
🔗 www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

@samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
@theguardian.com
Extremely offline: what happened when a Pacific island was cut off from the internet | Samanth Subramanian
A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world – and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life
www.theguardian.com
October 5, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
longreads.com
3. "Extremely Offline: What Happened When a Pacific Island Was Cut Off From The Internet" @samanthsubramanian.bsky.social

"What a remarkable engineering feat. How unsettling that this is what holds us together."

www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...
Extremely offline: what happened when a Pacific island was cut off from the internet | Samanth Subramanian
A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world – and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life
www.theguardian.com
October 3, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
davidedgarwolf.bsky.social
From his excellent new book on undersea cables globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-we...
The Web Beneath the Waves | Columbia Global Reports
Samanth Subramanian charts the geopolitical tensions, corporate power grabs, environmental risks, and quiet heroics involved in maintaining the Internet.
globalreports.columbia.edu
September 30, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
davidedgarwolf.bsky.social
“With the fracture of a single cable, Tonga was plunged into the kind of isolation it hadn’t seen in more than a century.”

Today‘s long read by @samanthsubramanian.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...
Extremely offline: what happened when a Pacific island was cut off from the internet | Samanth Subramanian
A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world – and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life
www.theguardian.com
September 30, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
trillingual.bsky.social
Had a few conversations recently that make me think, for the first time in ages, there are some exciting things happening in media. This is one of the highlights: Equator, a new magazine set up by Nesrine Malik, Pankaj Mishra, Jonathan Shainin and others. Sign up for info here: www.equator.org
September 15, 2025 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
shainin.bsky.social
Our new magazine, Equator, is officially out in the world — and here @equatormag.bsky.social
Sign up for preview emails, donate, and get tickets to our launch event in London: equator.org
A group of high-profile writers is launching a new magazine called Equator “to challenge the reigning assumption that global events should be narrated by and for the West,” according to a description shared with Semafor. Its founding team includes Pankaj Mishra, Mohsin Hamid, Nesrine Malik, Samanth Subramanian, and Suzy Hansen, with editing by Guardian long reads creator Jonathan Shainin. “In a post-American era, the task of a new magazine is to engage the rich variety of this historical moment on its own terms, without compulsively asking ‘What does it mean for the US?’” the nonprofit outlet, which is primarily based in London, will ask.
September 15, 2025 at 1:45 PM
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
Our new magazine @equatormag.bsky.social is officially out in the world.

Sign up for preview emails, donate, and get tickets to our launch event: www.equator.org.
September 15, 2025 at 7:26 AM
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
@alexis32.bsky.social Hi Alexis -- I'm a journalist based in London, looking to write to you about your YouTube channel. Would you be able to email me (samanth [at] gmail) or DM me here with your email ID? I'd love to explain more in full over email.

Thank you so much!
May 20, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
Out in the US and UK in less than six months! Pre-order here, pretty please — it makes a world of a difference to sales. And please RT / spread the word!

www.amazon.co.uk/Web-Beneath-...
April 29, 2025 at 8:17 AM
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
Out in the US and UK in less than six months! Pre-order here, pretty please — it makes a world of a difference to sales. And please RT / spread the word!

www.amazon.co.uk/Web-Beneath-...
April 29, 2025 at 8:17 AM
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
Tricksters duping tricksters. Cons within cons. A gonzo documentary filmmaker runs into an unknowable subject in my piece, reported from Denmark, in
@theguardian.com today:

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
The real Scandi noir: how a filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark’s self-image
The Black Swan follows a repentant master criminal as she sets up corrupt clients in front of hidden cameras. But is she really reformed – and is the director up to his own tricks?
www.theguardian.com
March 27, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
davidedgarwolf.bsky.social
A jaw-dropping story of corruption, duplicity and murky journalistic ethics. Today's Guardian long read by @samanthsubramanian.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
The real Scandi noir: how a filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark’s self-image
The Black Swan follows a repentant master criminal as she sets up corrupt clients in front of hidden cameras. But is she really reformed – and is the director up to his own tricks?
www.theguardian.com
March 27, 2025 at 9:51 AM
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
@danielapinheiro.bsky.social Hi Daniela! I'm a journalist in London, and hoping to reach out to you about a project. Is there a convenient email to reach you? I am at samanth [at] gmail [dot] com.
March 14, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
Always a blessed relief to hold the manuscript of a NEW BOOK in your hand. This one, on the fragile undersea cables that carry our data, took 2 years of research…
February 27, 2025 at 9:58 AM
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
Always a blessed relief to hold the manuscript of a NEW BOOK in your hand. This one, on the fragile undersea cables that carry our data, took 2 years of research…
February 27, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
gkalinkat.bsky.social
This idiot Trump blamed a tiny, endangered fish 🐟 for the #LAfires 🔥 As a #freshwater #biodiversity guy, I took this personally

www.tbsnews.net/features/pan... 🧪🌎
In Trump’s fantasy world, fish set fire to Los Angeles
Activists and scientists hoped that once more people experienced the dangers of the climate crisis firsthand, they’d be compelled to act. That’s not working out
www.tbsnews.net
January 15, 2025 at 9:51 AM
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
A new teaser of a recent piece. Highlights: vomiting into a glass, terrorism at Wimbledon, the Poisson model to calculate how many soldiers were killed by horse kicks, Malawi’s football league, the conundrum of whom a sports data point — a goal, say — belongs to

samanth.substack.com/p/multi-stor...
multi-storied #41: What are the odds?
This piece appeared last October in a Bloomberg Businessweek special package on sports gambling—an industry that is rapidly being legalized in US state after US state.
samanth.substack.com
January 15, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Samanth Subramanian
lrb.co.uk
‘The point is that patriarchy puts women in a sceptical scenario, making the distinction between the men you can and can’t trust difficult to draw.’

Sophie Smith on the Pelicot trial:
Sophie Smith · Sleeping Women: On the Pelicot trial
Gisèle Pelicot doesn’t conceive of her now ex-husband or the other men who raped her as ‘bad apples’, aberrations...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 1, 2025 at 6:17 PM
samanthsubramanian.bsky.social
My very last piece of 2024: reported from Eindhoven, where I watched football-playing robots and learned about how they could make our much-vaunted, automated, AI-centric future a little greener.

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solu...
Why the world needs lazier robots
To waste less energy, language models, self-driving cars and industrial robots need to think less.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 1, 2025 at 8:47 AM