My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Irish Book of the Year, Winner of the Orwell Prize and Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2022

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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. Extraordinary … The intensely personal stories she tells are a welcome corrective to the often dehumanising discourse that surrounds migration in rich countries. This unforgettable book should be required reading for politicians on all sides.” — the Guardian 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.

Probably the most important and touching book I’ve read this year… It’s horrific and nobody comes out looking good, least of all us citizens of Europe, who have allowed terrible things to go on in our name.” — Five Books An Post Irish Book Awards 2022: This year's winners revealed". The Irish Times. 23 November 2022 . Retrieved 24 November 2022. My Fourth Time, We Drowned casts light on a dark world that would be only too visible if we cared to look. These are stories that should be heard by everyone.My book of the year last year, this year and next… What a devastating book about the catastrophic inhumanity of European migration policy. It’s a journalistic masterpiece. Shattering stories. It absolutely demands to be read … Essential.” — Max Porter, author of ‘Grief Is The Thing With Feathers’

This audiobook highlights why, in certain circumstances, nothing can replace the power of the spoken word. Aoife McMahon’s narration is extraordinary, as are the first-person accounts she presents of the lives of refugees in Libyan detention camps and their efforts to escape seemingly unfathomable conditions. McMahon’s delivery is precise and in many ways as haunting as the stories that author Sally Hayden recounts.” — AudioFile Chair of judges Caroline Sanderson said the books were “marvellously wide-ranging in terms of setting, era, and the creative approaches on display” and “however different the canvas, all have enthralling human stories at their heart”.

If you are interested in learning about this topic, search for Sally Hayden online and read a few articles. 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. Each year, our independent panels award prizes to the writing and reporting which best meets the spirit of George Orwell’s own ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. There are currently four Orwell Prizes, The Orwell Prize for Political Writing, The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, The Orwell Prize for Journalism, and The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils. A book to make me laugh?: They aren’t exactly comedy, but when I’ve travelled to various cities lately, like Accra, Lagos and Nairobi, I’ve read the associated book from the Akashic Noir series. They are collections of crime stories by writers set in their own country and some do contain wry humour. The noted conservative economist delivers arguments both fiscal and political against social justice initiatives such as welfare and a federal minimum wage.

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 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 Generously sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils 2022 was judged by Sophia Parker (chair), Director of Emerging Futures and founder and former-CEO of Little Village, Annabel Deas, investigative journalist at BBC Radio 4 and winner of The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils 2021, Jo Swinson, Director of Partners for a New Economy and former Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Kirsty McNeill, Executive Director for Policy, Advocacy, and Campaigns at Save the Children, and Sophia Moreau, a multi-award winning campaigner and Head of Advocacy at Little Village. Sophia Parker said of Ed Thomas’s winning entry, The Cost of Covid – Burnley Crisis:Baillie Gifford Prize 2022 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 11 October 2022 . Retrieved 17 October 2022. A deeply researched and harrowing chronicle of the experiences of many refugees fleeing dictatorships, violence, persecution, and war. The book is the culmination of a one-woman fact-finding mission to uncover the myriad abuses faced by migrants hoping to make a better life for themselves in Europe.” — Foreign Policy Good journalism of this sort should, at the very least, make the reader angry. Excellent journalism should not only make one angry, it should make the reader feel the pain and the fear intrinsic to the reportage. It should make the reader want to act, to yell, to raise their fist, to do anything but throw up one’s hands in despair. In My Fourth Time, We Drowned, Hayden does all that and more.” —Counterpunch Magazine 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