my iphone is dead. can my information be transferred to a new iphone?

If you backed up your old device, then restore from that backup Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

Could you describe how it's "dead"?

While it may not be worth it simply to have a device to use, it might be useful to go to a repair shop that could do a repair for data recovery. A lot of these fixes may be short-term but can often work long enough to grab the data as an iOS backup.