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My reading of this coincided with all of the recent news in the UK about the Tory government's renewed attempts to stop small boats of migrants crossing the Channel from Europe. The book was already on my radar following it winning the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2022, and after reading the impressive The Naked Don't Fear the Water: A Journey Through the Refugee Underground last year. The UN agencies had allowed themselves to be used by the EU, effectively whitewashing a brutal system of violence and torture
The best and worst things about where you live?: I am a bit nomadic, after spending five years in London, two in Uganda and one in Sierra Leone. Living out of a suitcase is great in many ways but some day I wonder if it might be comforting to own a piece of furniture. It’s been brilliant to spend more time in Dublin since the book came out, catching up with friends and family. The UNHCR office in Tunis called Hayden “the enemy” for her reporting; the IOM deemed reports of deaths in Libyan detention “fake news”. Dozens of aid workers in Libya told her the UN agencies had allowed themselves “to be used by the EU, effectively whitewashing a brutal system of violence and torture”. Small Things Like These takes the reader to an Irish town in the weeks leading up to the Christmas of 1985, and into the life of Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant confronted with an ethical dilemma that has lain dormant in the town for years. With great tenderness, skill and poise, Claire Keegan asks questions of huge moral and political importance: what should we do when we encounter what we know to be wrong? Where, and to whom, do we owe the greatest loyalty? And when does collective silence become complicity?Who is your favourite fictional character?: I used to always love detectives, like Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey. The evidence [presented] in My Fourth Time, We Drownedis overwhelming. The facts argue for a more urgent and humane migrant policy. — Washington Independent Review of Books
My Fourth Time, We Drowned’ is brilliant, hugely important reportage on an ongoing situation many of us try to tune out.” — Marian Keyes My Fourth Time, We Drowned is 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. After this, none of us can say we didn’t know.” — Oliver Bullough, author of ‘Moneyland’
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Reading Hayden’s book is like descending through the middle bolgias of the Inferno, except that Dante’s hell does not hide behind a gauzy screen of humanitarian concern…” — The Sunday Times
Your book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned, has now won Irish Book of the Year , the Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the Michel Déon Prize . For those who haven’t read it, can you describe its subject, explain how it came about and where the title comes from? One Sunday in the summer of 2018, journalist Sally Hayden received a Facebook message: ‘Hi sister Sally, we need your help.’ It was the first of thousands of messages that would be sent to her by refugees seeking sanctuary on the world’s deadliest migration route. Sponsored and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils has a unique remit to encourage, highlight and sustain original, insightful, and impactful reporting on social issues in the UK that has enhanced the public understanding of social problems and public policy, and welcomes reporting that uses investigative intelligence to pursue new kinds of story, ones that may also extend the reach of traditional media. The Prize is named in recognition of the task Joseph Rowntree gave his organization ‘to search out the underlying causes of weakness or evil’ that lay behind Britain’s social problems. The noted conservative economist delivers arguments both fiscal and political against social justice initiatives such as welfare and a federal minimum wage. Good news: We must KNOW what is going on! This is a staggering account of the migrant crisis across North Africa. Investigative journalism at its best. Winner of Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2022 and Winner of the Irish Book of the year 2022.
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An Post Irish Book Awards 2022: This year's winners revealed". The Irish Times. 23 November 2022 . Retrieved 24 November 2022. The painful themes from this formidable book are skillfully written about by Sally Hayden…” — New Lines Magazine A]stonishingly detailed… My Fourth Time, We Drowned is not simply a catalogue of misery: it is a meticulously documented record of the complicity of the very organizations that are meant to be forces of good.” —The Times Literary Supplement a b c "War Journalist Sally Hayden receives 2020 Law Alumni Award". Sutherland School of Law . Retrieved 22 April 2022– via UCD.ie. Kissane, Christopher. "My Fourth Time, We Drowned: A book of evidence". The Irish Times . Retrieved 22 April 2022.
Waar ik wel nooit bij stil stond was de schimmige rol die de UN Hoge Raad voor Vluchtelingen hier soms speelt. Het lijkt bij momenten meer een instantie die zichzelf (en haar goedbetaalde werknemers) kost wat kost wil in stand houden. The triumph of the debut book by Sally Hayden, a 33-year-old Irish reporter, is to inject a renewed urgency and moral clarity into a story most people think they are familiar with.” — The Times of London Both Sally Hayden and Claire Keegan have, in very different ways, written gripping stories about things that should alarm us: there are awful truths right at the heart of our societies and systems. However, in their wit, elegance and compassion, these powerful winning books also help us think about the choices we make, and how to make the future better. Orwell would be proud. a b Doyle, Martin (7 December 2022). "Sally Hayden wins An Post Irish Book of the Year award for My Fourth Time, We Drowned". The Irish Times. We thought this was outstanding journalism, bringing humanity and empathy to the unfolding crisis of suffering and destitution that was deepened and extended by the pandemic. As readers we are invited to experience the world through the eyes of the people Ed met in Burnley, and his skillful journalism managed to bring home the depth of the crisis without sensationalising it. While the pieces were focused on Covid, the poverty Thomas’ work revealed is an issue we know is not going away, as destitution continues to rise and the cost of living crisis bites deeper every week. The panel were blown away by Ed’s reporting and we hope this award will encourage journalists to continue to shine a light on to the long shadow that poverty is casting across communities up and down the country.
Sally Hayden is an award-winning journalist and photographer currently focused on migration, conflict and humanitarian crises. The shortlist for the prize, which recognises the best nonfiction of the year, was chosen from a longlist of 12, which was selected from 362 books. Hayden’s powerful book relays the harrowing stories migrants have shared with her from their experiences in various Libyan migrant detention centers, from enduring near-starvation conditions to torture and even death…an accessible, critically reported account…” - - The Washington Post
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