News

July 2022

Press Release

Announcing the Longlist for This Year’s Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing


The Christopher G. Moore Foundation is delighted to announce an exciting longlist of 13 books that are outstanding in their portrayal of human rights themes. The trustees of the Foundation were thrilled with the exceptional quality and record quantity of books submitted this year. Each longlisted book has been chosen because of its ambitious, brave and original approach to highlighting crucial human rights issues across the world and because of the high quality of its writing.

The 2022 Longlist books are as follows (alphabetical by author surname):

  • Susie Alegre – Freedom To Think – Atlantic Books, London

  • Monbiant Dogon with Jenna Krajeski – Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds – Penguin Press, New York

  • Janine di Giovanni – The Vanishing – Bloomsbury

  • Sarah Dryden-Peterson – Right Where We Belong – Harvard University Press

  • Thomas Harding – White Debt – Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  • Sally Hayden – My Fourth Time, We Drowned – 4th Estate, London

  • Christina Lamb – The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless – William Collins

  • Dr Denis Mukwege – The Power of Women – Short Books, Octopus Publishing

  • Eyal Press – Dirty Work – Head of Zeus

  • Gideon Rachman – The Age of the Strongman – Bodley Head

  • Robert Samuels and Toluse Ologunnipa – His Name Is George Floyd – Penguin Random House

  • Nury Turkel – No Escape - William Collins

  • Barbara F. Walter – How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them – Viking

This year’s longlisted books cover a wide range of human rights issues: freedom of thought and speech; refugee education; homelessness and isolation; marginalization and discrimination related to work, race, gender or religion; migrant issues; the Uyghurs of China; the roots of racism; war; the BLM movement; dictatorships and women’s health and marginalization in developing countries. The books span a range of global settings, as well as the world of digital communications, health care and working and living environments.

Foundation founder Christopher G. Moore says: “This year around 50 books were submitted from publishers across the world. Our hope is this longlist of books will bring attention to the conditions and circumstances of the most vulnerable members of the international community. The common thread is the danger of what happens when basic human rights protections are violated. Over the next several months, we will be tweeting about the 13 longlisted books and encourage you to read them along with our panel of distinguished judges. We will look forward to your comments on the selected books.”

Please follow our discussion of the longlist titles on Twitter: @cgmoorefoundat1

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 today’s societies. This unique initiative is awarded annually, as chosen by a panel of judges whose own work focuses on human rights.

The 2022 Moore Prize jury is comprised of Jury Chair Bidisha Mamata, British author and broadcaster; Avril Benoît, Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières and Ethiopian writer, blogger and human rights activist Befekadu Hailu Techane.

The shortlist will be announced on Monday, 10 December, 2022 and the winning book on Wednesday, 11 January, 2023. 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.

  • Avril Benoît is the executive director of Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières in the US, based in New York City. She has worked with the international medical humanitarian organization since 2006 in various operational management and executive leadership roles, most recently as the director of communications and development at MSF’s operational center in Geneva. Throughout her career with MSF, Avril has contributed to major movement-wide initiatives, including the global mobilization to end attacks on hospitals and health workers. She has worked as a country director and project coordinator for MSF, leading operations to provide aid to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Mauritania, South Sudan, and South Africa.

Prior to joining MSF, Avril had a distinguished 20-year career as an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in Canada, reporting from Kenya, Burundi, India and Brazil on HIV stigma, rapid urbanization, sexual violence in conflict, and political inclusion of women, among numerous other assignments and topics.

  • Bidisha Mamata is a broadcaster, journalist and multimedia artist. She specialises in international human rights, social justice and the arts and offers political analysis, arts critique and cultural diplomacy tying these interests together. She writes for the main UK broadsheets and presents and commentates heavily for BBC TV and radio, ITN, CNN, ViacomCBS and Sky News. Her fifth book, Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices of London (2015), is based on her outreach work in UK prisons, refugee charities and detention centres. Her first short film, An Impossible Poison, received its London premier in 2018 and has been highly acclaimed and selected for numerous international film festivals. Her latest film series, Aurora, launched in 2020 and is ongoing. She is currently presenting the Hello Happiness audio series for Wellcome Collection, all about mental and physical health.

  • Befekadu Hailu Techane is a civil society leader, author and an advocate for the respect of human rights democracy in Ethiopia. He is co-founder and Executive Director at the Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD), an Ethiopian civil society organisation. Prior to establishing CARD in 2019, Befekadu worked as an independent writer and activist for sociopolitical rights. He was a co-founder of the renowned Zone 9 Blogging and Activism Collective, served as an editor and opinion writer for many local print media outlets and is a weekly contributor to Deutsche Welle (Amharic Service). He was imprisoned in Ethiopia for his human rights activism in 2014 and again in 2016 but acquitted both times. Befekadu’s work has been recognised through several human rights awards including a PEN Pinter Prize for International Writer of Courage, a Sakharov Fellowship from the European Parliament and a Freedom Fellowship from the Human Rights Foundation.

  • Adrienne Loftus Parkins is a Trustee of the Foundation and will act as an advisor and planner for the 2022 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 shortlist will be announced on Monday December 5th 2022. The winner will be announced on Wednesday January 11th 2023.