News
May 2024
Press Release
Announcing the Jury for the 2024 Moore Prize for Writing on Human Rights
The Christopher G. Moore Foundation is delighted to announce the jury for their eighth annual literary prize honouring books that feature human rights themes. The Prize has been established to provide recognition to authors who, through their work, contribute to the universality of human rights. This unique initiative is awarded annually, as chosen by a panel of judges whose own work focuses on human rights.
The 2024 Moore Prize jury is comprised of Europe-based Burmese investigative journalist, Thin Lei Win; New York-based human rights author, journalist and activist, Salil Tripathi and journalist and editor, Fahad Shah.
Prize Founder Christopher G Moore says: The three members of the 2024 Moore Prize jury are each human rights veterans who come to the task with years of first-hand field experience. Their own histories of standing up for human rights victims will bring an important perspective to judging the books. Each jurist has a unique perspective from which to choose books that meet the required level of excellence. The trustees of the foundation look forward to working closely with them.
This year’s Prize will recognise books first published between July 1st 2023 and June 30th 2024. It is an international award which is open to authors worldwide. Entry is free and works may be submitted directly by the author(s) or through a publisher or agent. The Prize is open to any non-fiction work, published in or translated into English, which promotes the values of human rights. The winner of the prize will receive £1,000.
The prize longlist will be announced on June 12th 2024, the shortlist on November 13th 2024 and the winner on January 8th 2025.
The 2023 Moore Prize was awarded to Benjamin Black for Belly Woman: Birth, Blood & Ebola: The Untold Story. In 2023 we awarded a £500 Special Prize for Young Writers to Yeva Skalietska for You Don’t Know What War Is – The Diary of A Young Girl From Ukraine.
Notes to Editors:
The Christopher G. Moore Foundation and Moore Prize are named after Christopher G. Moore, the Canadian novelist and essayist. The Christopher G. Moore Foundation is a registered UK charity dedicated to supporting authors who promote human rights and monitor its infringements.
Fahad Shah is a journalist and editor who mainly focuses on human rights, politics, economy and social issues in South Asia. In 2011, he founded The Kashmir Walla, an independent digital media outlet known for its fearless reporting on politics, culture, and human rights in the region. Shah has been published in over three dozen international publications, including The Atlantic, Christian Science Monitor, Time, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, South China Morning Post, The Nation, Spiegel, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera. He has also produced documentaries and news videos for Channel4, Al Jazeera, TRT World, Business Insider, and SCMP Films. A recipient of the prestigious Human Rights Press Award in 2021, his work has also been supported by grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the National Geographic Society. Beyond journalism, Shah has contributed to academic circles, serving as a researcher and consultant on Kashmiri affairs for international think tanks.
Thin Lei Win is an award-winning Europe-based multimedia investigative journalist specialising in food and climate issues. She is Lead Reporter for the Food Systems Newsroom of Lighthouse Reports, a collaborative journalism outlet focusing on public interest investigations, curates her own newsletter Thin Ink and hosts The Index, a podcast based on the Global Organised Crime Index. Born and raised in Myanmar, Thin is also the co-founder of The Kite Tales, a unique preservation project chronicling the lives and histories of ordinary people across Myanmar and which has been supporting Myanmar storytellers since the military seized power in February 2021. Her extensive global experience includes nearly 13 years as an international correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Thomson Reuters media company, and setting up Myanmar Now, an award-winning bilingual news agency, in the run-up to Myanmar's historic 2015 elections.
Salil Tripathi is a board member of PEN International, where he has chaired its Writers in Prison Committee. He is also a trustee of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and has been a researcher at Amnesty International. At the Institute for Human Rights and Business, he is a senior adviser, working on discrimination, technology, and conflict. He is also a senior associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership. He is the author of four works of non-fiction: Offence: The Hindu Case about freedom of expression and Hindu nationalism; Detours: Songs of the Open Road, a collection of travel essays, and The Colonel Who Would Not Repent, an account of Bangladesh's war of independence and its aftermath. He recently co-edited, with Shilpa Gupta, a volume of writings by imprisoned poets, called For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit.
Adrienne Loftus Parkins is a Trustee of the Foundation and will act as an advisor and planner for the 2023 judging panel. Her vast experience includes being the Chief Judge of the Moore Prize 2021 judging panel. Adrienne is also the founder and former director of the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature where she focused on promoting contemporary pan-Asian writing and championing emerging Asian/British Asian writers throughout the UK.
Christopher G. Moore is a Canadian author whose writing is focused on Southeast Asia. Best known for his Calvino series of detective novels, he has also written several non-fiction works and edited anthologies of essays discussing human rights, freedom of speech and censorship.
The Foundation Trustees are Daniel Vaver, Christopher G. Moore, Adrienne Loftus Parkins and Busakorn Suriyasarn
The longlist will be announced on Wednesday, 12 June, the shortlist will be announced on Wednesday, 13 November, 2024.The winner will be announced on Wednesday, 8 January, 2025.
Photo by Adrian Infernus on Unsplash