This audiobook highlights why, in certain circumstances, nothing can replace the power of the spoken word. Aoife McMahon’s narration is extraordinary, as are the first-person accounts she presents of the lives of refugees in Libyan detention camps and their efforts to escape seemingly unfathomable conditions. McMahon’s delivery is precise and in many ways as haunting as the stories that author Sally Hayden recounts.” — AudioFile Each year, our independent panels award prizes to the writing and reporting which best meets the spirit of George Orwell’s own ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. There are currently four Orwell Prizes, The Orwell Prize for Political Writing, The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, The Orwell Prize for Journalism, and The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils. My Fourth Time, We Drowned’ is brilliant, hugely important reportage on an ongoing situation many of us try to tune out.” — Marian Keyes

Sally Hayden is an Irish journalist and writer. A foreign correspondent, she has reported from Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda. Her book My Fourth Time, We Drowned, an investigation into the migrant crisis, was published in 2022 and awarded The Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2022, [1] the 2022 Michel Déon Prize, [2] and is the Overall Book of the Year at the 2022 Irish Book Awards. [3] [4] Early life [ edit ] An incredible, heart-wrenching, journalistic look at migration from North Africa to Europe, sparing none of the pain of these people's stories. Hayden's straightforward prose hides nothing, from the awful conditions to the ineffectiveness (to put it kindly) of the UN's aid organizations. Be prepared for everything awful that can happen to a person including torture, rape, and death. One Sunday in the summer of 2018, journalist Sally Hayden received a Facebook message: ‘Hi sister Sally, we need your help.’ It was the first of thousands of messages that would be sent to her by refugees seeking sanctuary on the world’s deadliest migration route.Hayden introduces her story with her receiving a Facebook message from a Libyan jail in August 2018, going on to briefly describe the situation for refugees/asylum seekers/economic migrants in Libya. Ook schrijnend zijn de absurd hoge verwachtingen die sommige illegale migranten soms hebben... dan kan het alleen maar tegen vallen. Zeno, Ade. "I messaggi dall'inferno libico e la disgustosa ipocrisia dell'Ue"[The messages from Libyan hell and the disgusting hypocrisy of the EU]. EditorialeDomani.it (in Italian). Are all humans human?” Roméo Dallaire, who commanded the UN peacekeeping force during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, asked in a lecture some years later. “Or are some more human than others?” At the time of writing nearly four million people have left Ukraine since the Russian invasion. The overwhelming majority have been welcomed with enormous kindness and care. For refugees on the epic journey in search of safety – “the road of death” one Eritrean called it; the “Temple Run” they say in Sierra Leone, after the mobile phone game’s exhortation to “use amazing powers to cheat death” – phones are lifelines. Because of her award-winning investigative reporting on Syrian refugees, one of those hidden arteries found its way to Hayden in her sublet room in London. “Sister Sally,” a man WhatsApped her in 2018 from a Libyan detention centre for refugees, “we need your help.”

Kafka retold by an Irishwoman in Africa. Read this great book shedding light on a monstrous crime.” —John Sweeney, host of Hunting Ghislaine with John SweeneyAn Post Irish Book Awards 2022: This year's winners revealed". The Irish Times. 23 November 2022 . Retrieved 24 November 2022.

Sponsored and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils has a unique remit to encourage, highlight and sustain original, insightful, and impactful reporting on social issues in the UK that has enhanced the public understanding of social problems and public policy, and welcomes reporting that uses investigative intelligence to pursue new kinds of story, ones that may also extend the reach of traditional media. The Prize is named in recognition of the task Joseph Rowntree gave his organization ‘to search out the underlying causes of weakness or evil’ that lay behind Britain’s social problems. MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window) She then starts her story properly with Essey in Eritrea (a country about which I knew nothing apart from its location). He makes his way across Ethiopia and Sudan, to Libya, where he unsuccessfully tries to travel by people smugglers’ dinghy to Europe. Having been stopped by Libyan coastal patrols twice and getting his extended family to pay bribes to get him freed, his family runs out of money and he is imprisoned in Libya. Without proper reporting we know nothing of our circumstances, yet journalism and journalists are now under threat as rarely before. So treasure this great journalism – forensic, decent and beautifully crafted. a b c "War Journalist Sally Hayden receives 2020 Law Alumni Award". Sutherland School of Law . Retrieved 22 April 2022– via UCD.ie.Het is geen verhaal om vrolijk van te worden en het toont nog maar eens aan hoe complex en quasi onoplosbaar dit probleem is. Irish journalist Sally Hayden describes one of the great tragedies of our era, the story of the thousands of refugees bent on starting new lives in the West, who instead spend years rotting in Sudanese refugee camps, trappedin Libyan prisons, clinging to sinking dinghies in the Mediterranean. Her harrowing portrait captures the voices of theEritreans, Somalis, Ethiopians, Gambians and Sierra Leoneans caught up in this pitiless modern slave trade, whoconstantly remind us that the desire to better yourself is the most fundamental of human impulses. This is a remarkable and important book.” — MichelaWrong, author of ‘Do Not Disturb’ I read The Pianist while I was also reading The Fourth Time I Drowned. While both were heavy books, I found these were important to read to honor and understand more of each story and setting: one about the Warsaw ghettos in the 1940s and the other about the Mediterranean refugee migration crisis happening today. Both books provided harrowing accounts of hopelessness, desperation, and survival. The horrors described in Warsaw and Libya show truly the worst in humanity, how people can hold such little regard for human life. I read and processed both books together, drawing parallels and noting differences, so I figured I'd write a joint review on these.

En toch, nu het hier allemaal zo heel expliciet en goed uitgelegd staat, komt het toch weer binnen. Intrepidly reported and vividly written, this sobering account shines a spotlight on an underreported tragedy.” —Publishers Weekly Reading Hayden’s book is like descending through the middle bolgias of the Inferno, except that Dante’s hell does not hide behind a gauzy screen of humanitarian concern…” — The Sunday Timesa b Doyle, Martin (7 December 2022). "Sally Hayden wins An Post Irish Book of the Year award for My Fourth Time, We Drowned". The Irish Times. One of the finest non-fiction books I have read in a long time.” — Matthew d’Ancona, Tortoise Media Sally Hayden is an Irish journalist focused on migration, conflict, and humanitarian crises. She is currently the Africa correspondent for the Irish Times. Sally’s work on Libya has been featured by the New York Times, the Guardian, Channel 4 News, CNN International, Al Jazeera, TIME, BBC, Die ZEIT, Der Spiegel, the Sunday Times, the Telegraph, ITV News, and other outlets across the world. She has reported on other international stories for the Washington Post, the Financial Times Magazine, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In 2019, Sally was named as one of Forbes ’30 Under 30’ in Media in Europe, in part because of her work on refugee issues. Learn More Praise A New Yorker Best Book of 2022