Smashing Times are delighted to hear from Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann that the 2025 winner of the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing is Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary by Victoria Amelina (William Collins/St. Martin’s Press). Victoria (1986-2023) was a Ukrainian novelist, poet and human rights defender who lost her life in a Russian missile attack in 2023.
As the assault on Ukraine unfolded, Victoria set aside fiction writing and trained as a war crimes investigator with the Ukrainian human rights group Truth Hounds. She travelled to areas liberated from Russian occupation and recorded the testimonies of witnesses and survivors. The crimes she investigated included the murder of fellow writers such as Volodymyr Vakulenko, whose occupation diaries Victoria discovered buried in his family’s garden and helped to have published before her death in 2023.
Quote from Christopher G. Moore, founder of the prize: “Victoria Amelina’s account of Russian war crimes in Ukraine is a poignant reminder of the sacrifice of a journalist driven by passion to report the truth about the lives shattered by the Russian invasion.
The book stands as a testament to Amelina’s courage in bringing into focus the devastating consequences of war for ordinary Ukrainians. Amid so much propaganda and misinformation, her legacy endures as a vital record of what has happened and continues to happen. I am pleased with the jury’s decision, which was difficult given the exceptional quality of the shortlisted books.”
Smashing Times remembers and pays tribute to Victoria Amelina who was a brilliant writer and human rights defender. Victoria spoke passionately at the 2022 Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival about bringing the war in Ukraine to a close.
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