Best magazine-style, long-form narrative feature in print or digital on an international story
Award Year: 2024
Award Name: The Ed Cunningham Award 2024
Recipient: Sarah Topol
Affiliation: The New York Times Magazine
Honored Work: “The Deserter”
The Deserter combines a complicated love story with the historical sweep of contemporary Russia, leading up to (and into) the disaster of the Ukraine war. The exquisite details in Topol’s piece speak to patient, dogged reporting, and create a compelling narrative in vivid, novelesque prose. The resulting piece is a private account of one couple’s tribulations and an exploration of the relationship between the individual, the government, and state ideology. Its resonance is both universal and rooted in the particularities of the Russian experience.
Link to Winning Work:
Citation for Excellence:
Thomas Brennan
Mother Jones/The War Horse
“My Platoon’s Fight to Survive – and Heal From – the Bloodiest Battle of the Iraq War”