Joe Parkinson, left, and Drew Hinshaw
Best non-fiction book on international affairs
AWARD DATE: 2021
AWARD NAME: The Cornelius Ryan Award 2021
AWARD RECIPIENT: Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: HarperCollins
AWARD HONORED WORK: Bring Back Our Girls: The Untold Story of the Global Search for Nigeria’s Missing Schoolgirls
AWARD SPONSOR: Friends of Richard Threlkeld
Bring Back our Girls is a tour de force of reporting, insight and clear and compelling writing. It tells the story of the search for 276 Nigerian teenage schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 by Boko Haram Islamic extremists, and features revealing individual accounts by the girls themselves. But the book is about much more: the power of social media to galvanize international attention around a single crisis; the lengthy global negotiations needed to free the girls; and the cultures and motivations of Boko Haram and Nigerians themselves. This book highlights the crushing repression of women and girls in parts of the developing world and the resilience with which they pursue their hopes. The work is bolstered by extensive field reporting, by the reporters’ expertise in African politics and culture, and by the diary of one survivor.
Link to the winning book here >>
Citation for Excellence:
Geoffrey Cain
PublicAffairs, Hachette Book Group
The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future