A more humane policy is possible”: Sally Hayden on the welcome to Ukrainians and on covering refugees before Putin’s war’, Reuters Institute, Oxford University. Are all humans human?” Roméo Dallaire, who commanded the UN peacekeeping force during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, asked in a lecture some years later. “Or are some more human than others?” At the time of writing nearly four million people have left Ukraine since the Russian invasion. The overwhelming majority have been welcomed with enormous kindness and care. A book that might move me to tears?: Bushra al-Maqtari’s What Have You Left Behind, about the devastation of the war in Yemen, which I recently reviewed for The Irish Times; and Alexa Hagerty’s Still Life With Bones, on the exhumation of mass graves in Latin America. It comes out next year but I was sent an early copy. 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 Readers should not flinch from [anger and embarrassment] but look it directly in the face, and let Hayden’s vital reporting make them reconsider their view of what makes a moral world.” — The Baffler

What is your current project?: I have a few reporting assignments coming up for The Irish Times and two book ideas that I’m slowly developing. In the finest tradition of George Orwell’s journalism, George Monbiot draws on a vast reserve of knowledge to write with wit, elegance, forensic insight, and sustained and justified anger about the most important, and most neglected, crisis facing humanity. His targets range from organised crime to criminal political indifference and he leaves us in no doubt about what we must do to survive. 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. MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window)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 Sally Hayden’s heart-stopping account of the plight of contemporary refugees is both a compelling epic and an intimate encounter with exact personal experience. She achieves what all great writing hopes to do—the restoration of humanity to those who have been deprived of it. This is a vital book for anyone who wants to feel what it means to be human in the 21st century.” —Fintan O’Toole, author of The Politics of Pain What current book, film, TV show and podcast would you recommend?: I recently read So Distant From My Life by Burkinabè writer Monique Ilboudo: a novel about the relationship between Africa and Europe that could be read as a companion piece to Tayeb Salih’s 1960s classic Season of Migration to the North. 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. 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.

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. a b c "War Journalist Sally Hayden receives 2020 Law Alumni Award". Sutherland School of Law . Retrieved 22 April 2022– via UCD.ie. A powerfully written amalgamation of narrative nonfiction and investigative journalism, My Fourth Time We Drownedis compelling reading for a wide audience.”— Mail & Guardian I read The Pianist while I was also reading The Fourth Time I Drowned. While both were heavy books, I found these were important to read to honor and understand more of each story and setting: one about the Warsaw ghettos in the 1940s and the other about the Mediterranean refugee migration crisis happening today. Both books provided harrowing accounts of hopelessness, desperation, and survival. The horrors described in Warsaw and Libya show truly the worst in humanity, how people can hold such little regard for human life. I read and processed both books together, drawing parallels and noting differences, so I figured I'd write a joint review on these.Hayden, Sally (3 July 2019). "Opinion:They Hoped to Reach Europe Before They Were Massacred". The New York Times– via NYTimes.com. Dr Christopher Kissane is a historian and writer, and host of the Ireland’s Edge podcast Christopher Kissane

Does it make you see Ireland in a different light?: Yes and no. So many aspects of humanity are the same wherever you go, but of course there is a lot more privilege in Ireland. The Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2022: My Fourth Time, We Drowned by Sally Hayden (Harper Collins) David Collins and Hannah Al-Othman were also awarded a Special Prize for their entry, The Murder of Agnes Wanjiru. Sophia Parker said: 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 SupplementZeno, Ade. "I messaggi dall'inferno libico e la disgustosa ipocrisia dell'Ue"[The messages from Libyan hell and the disgusting hypocrisy of the EU]. EditorialeDomani.it (in Italian). 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