News
June 2024
Press Release
Announcing the Long-List for the 2024 Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing
The Christopher G. Moore Foundation is delighted to announce an exciting long-list of nine books that are outstanding in their portrayal of human rights themes. The trustees of the Foundation were thrilled with the exceptional quality and quantity of books submitted this year. Each long-listed book has been chosen because of its ambitious, brave and unique approach to highlighting crucial human rights issues across the world and because of its fine quality of writing.
The 2024 Long-list titles are as follows (alphabetical by surname):
Fear Is Just a Word by Azam Ahmed (Fleet, Little Brown Group, UK)
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here - The United States, Central America and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer (Penguin Press, Penguin Random House, NYC)
Some People Need Killing – A Memoir of Murder in the Philippines by Patricia Evangelista (Grove Press, UK)
Take My Grief Away - Voices From the War in Ukraine by Katherine Gordeeva (WH Allen, Ebury Publishing, Penguin Random House, UK)
Waiting to be Arrested at Night - A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide by Tahir Hamut Izgil and Joshua L. Freeman (trans) (Penguin Press, Penguin Random House, NYC & UK)
Waste and the City - The Crisis of Sanitation and Right to Citylife by Colin McFarlane (Verso, UK)
Outspoken - My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan by Sima Samar (Saqi Books, UK)
The Incarcerations - BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah (HarperCollins, India & UK)
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama - A Palestinian Story by Nathan Thrall (Allen Lane, Penguin Random House UK)
Chosen from a record 75 submissions, each of these long-listed books cover a wide range of human rights issues: the human effects of war, the collapse of formal justice, genocide, immigration, the undermining of democracy, ethnic persecution, the right to justice and education for women, the worldwide sanitation crisis and the right to a healthy living environment. The books span a range of global settings: Afghanistan, China, India, Israel, Mexico, Palestine, The Philippines, Ukraine and the USA.
Foundation founder, Christopher G. Moore says:
“The nine long-listed books examine the abandonment, panic and fear experienced by those whose human rights have been stripped away. You learn their names, jobs, families and dreams. They are in many ways very much like you – like all of us. These long-listed books record the stories of what happens when we collectively lose our sense of empathy—the vacuum is filled with violence and repression that go unnoticed and unchecked. There is a common theme: there can be no domestic peace without tolerance, the rule of law, and constraints on power.”
The Moore Prize was established in 2015 to provide funds to authors who, through their work, contribute to the universality of human rights and to give a platform to human rights issues that are important in our current societies. 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 Chief Judge, journalist and activist Salil Tripathi; Burmese investigative journalist, Thin Lei Win and journalist and editor Fahad Shah.
The shortlist will be announced on 13 November, 2024 and the winning book on 8 January, 2025. The winner of the prize will receive £1,000.
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 2024 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 retired law professor and Canadian author whose novels have a Southeast Asian connection. He’s best known for his Vincent Calvino Crime series. He has also written half a dozen non-fiction books examining the connection of language, literature and culture. His published essays discuss human rights, freedom of speech and censorship.
The Foundation Trustees are Daniel Vaver, Christopher G. Moore, Adrienne Loftus Parkins and Busakorn Suriyasarn
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