SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2022 SHORTLISTED FOR THE MICHEL DEON PRIZE 2022 'The most important work of contemporary reporting I have ever read' SALLY ROONEY 'Journalism of the most urgent kind' FINANCIAL TIMES The Western world has turned its back on refugees, fuelling one of the most devastating human rights disasters in history.
In August 2018, Sally Hayden received a Facebook message. 'Hi sister Sally, we need your help,' it read. 'We are under bad condition in Libya prison. If you have time, I will tell you all the story.' More messages followed from more refugees. They told stories of enslavement and trafficking, torture and murder, tuberculosis and sexual abuse. And they revealed something else: that they were all incarcerated as a direct result of European policy.
From there began a staggering investigation into the migrant crisis across North Africa. This book follows the shocking experiences of refugees seeking sanctuary, but it also surveys the bigger picture: the negligence of NGOs and corruption within the United Nations. The economics of the twenty-first-century slave trade and the EU's bankrolling of Libyan militias. The trials of people smugglers, the frustrations of aid workers, the loopholes refugees seek out and the role of social media in crowdfunding ransoms. Who was accountable for the abuse? Where were the people finding solutions? Why wasn't it being widely reported?
At its heart, this is a book about people who have made unimaginable choices, risking everything to survive in a system that wants them to be silent and disappear.
MORE PRAISE
'Compassionate, brave, enraging, beautifully written and incredibly well researched. Hayden exposes the truth' OLIVER BULLOUGH
'Blistering' LINDSEY HILSUM
'The most riveting, detailed and damning account' CHRISTINA LAMB
'One of the most important testaments of this awful time in life's history. It is both heartbreaking and stoic. I cry reading any page of it' EDNA O'BRIEN
Sally Hayden is an award-winning journalist and photographer focused on migration, conflict and humanitarian crises.
She is currently the Africa correspondent for the Irish Times, and has also worked with VICE News, CNN International, the Financial Times, TIME, BBC, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the New York Times, Channel 4 News, Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera and Newsweek, among others.
Sally has reported across the Middle East, Africa and Europe, from countries including Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Jordan, DR Congo, the Gambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Uganda. Her writing has been translated into nine languages and she has appeared on national and international media. A law graduate with an MSc in international politics, she has twice sat on the committee deciding the winner of Transparency International's Anti-Corruption Award. In 2019, she was included on the Forbes '30 Under 30' list of media in Europe.
Title: My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route
Author: Hayden, Sally
ISBN: 9780008445577
Binding:
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: 2022-03-31
Number of Pages: 496
Weight: 0.7402 kg
'Journalism of the most urgent kind'
Financial Times
'[A] devastating, moving and damning account of one of the tragedies of our age ... Hayden never flinches in documenting human nature at its worst - its best is shown here, too'
Irish Independent
'The most important work of contemporary reporting I have ever read ... I hope that Sally Hayden's work can help to begin a radically new and overdue discussion about Europe's approach to migration and borders'
Sally Rooney
'Compassionate, brave, enraging, beautifully written and incredibly well researched. Hayden exposes the truth about years of grotesque abuse committed against some of the world's most vulnerable people in all of our names'
Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland
'One of the most important testaments of this awful time in life's history. It is both heartbreaking and stoic. I cry reading any page of it. Sally Hayden is a young and brilliant journalist'
Edna O'Brien, author of The Little Red Chairs
'Quite simply, an unexpected tour de force ... deserves critical acclaim and a wide readership ... I found this book unputtdownable'
Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer at The New Yorker
'This vivid chronicle ... may make you cry, but it should make you angry ... A blistering rebuke'
Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor of Channel 4 News
'A veritable masterclass in journalism ... The most riveting, detailed and damning account ever written on the deadliest of migration routes'
Christina Lamb, Chief Foreign Correspondent of the Sunday Times
'Read this great book shedding light on a monstrous crime'
John Sweeney, author of North Korea Undercover
'Harrowing ... A remarkable and important book'
Michela Wrong, author of Do Not Disturb
'Heart-stopping ... A vital book for anyone who wants to feel what it means to be human in the 21st century'
Fintan O'Toole, author of We Don't Know Ourselves