Best non-fiction book on international affairs
AWARD DATE: 2018
AWARD NAME: The Cornelius Ryan Award 2018
AWARD RECIPIENT: Rania Abouzeid
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: W. W. Norton & Company
AWARD HONORED WORK: No Turning Back: Life, Loss and Hope in Wartime Syria
AWARD SPONSOR: Friends of Richard Threlkeld
“No Turning Back” is an extraordinary feat of reporting—a searing account of the lives of Syrians from all sides caught up in a catastrophic war. A fluent Arabic speaker, Abouzeid draws on her years of often dangerous reporting inside the conflict zone and the deep ties she has built up with people of all political and religious persuasions. This allows her to describe and explain in detail Syria’s tragic descent from the optimism of the first peaceful democratic uprisings in 2011 to the sectarian slaughter of civilians and brutal and misguided foreign interventions. Abouzeid spares nothing in describing the appalling torture and endless mass killings of civilians by the Assad regime. But her use of personal narratives and her fluid writing never let us lose track of the humanity of the Syrians suffering on all sides.
Citation for Excellence recipient: Barbie Nadeau
Affiliation: Oneworld Publications
Honored Work: Roadmap to Hell: Sex, Drugs and Guns on the Mafia Coast