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My Fourth Time, We Drowned
- Author
- Sally Hayden
- Narrator
- Aoife McMahon
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date
- 31 March 2022
- Run Time
- 13 hours 59 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE
WINNER OF IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE
‘The most important work of contemporary reporting I have ever read’ SALLY ROONEY
The Western world has turned its back on refugees, fuelling one of the most devastating human rights disasters in history.
In August 2018, Sally Hayden received a Facebook message. ‘Hi sister Sally, we need your help,’ it read. ‘We are under bad condition in Libya prison. If you have time, I will tell you all the story.’ More messages followed from more refugees. They told stories of enslavement and trafficking, torture and murder, tuberculosis and sexual abuse. And they revealed something else: that they were all incarcerated as a direct result of European policy.
From there began a staggering investigation into the migrant crisis across North Africa. This book follows the shocking experiences of refugees seeking sanctuary, but it also surveys the bigger picture: the negligence of NGOs and corruption within the United Nations. The economics of the twenty-first-century slave trade and the EU’s bankrolling of Libyan militias. The trials of people smugglers, the frustrations of aid workers, the loopholes refugees seek out and the role of social media in crowdfunding ransoms. Who was accountable for the abuse? Where were the people finding solutions? Why wasn’t it being widely reported?
At its heart, this is a book about people who have made unimaginable choices, risking everything to survive in a system that wants them to be silent and disappear.
**This is Also a Love Story, the latest book from Sally Hayden is available to preorder now**
‘One of the most important testaments of this awful time in life's history’ EDNA O'BRIEN, author of The Little Red Chairs
‘A journalistic masterpiece … absolutely demands to be read’ MAX PORTER, author of Shy
‘Compassionate, brave, enraging … Hayden exposes the truth’ OLIVER BULLOUGH, author of Everybody Loves Our Dollars
Critics Review
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Praise for My Fourth Time, We Drowned:
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‘Journalism of the most urgent kind’ Financial Times
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‘The triumph of the book is to inject a renewed urgency and moral clarity into a story most people think they are familiar with’ The Times
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‘[A] devastating, moving and damning account of one of the tragedies of our age … Hayden never flinches in documenting human nature at its worst – its best is shown here, too’ Irish Independent
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‘The most important work of contemporary reporting I have ever read … I hope that Sally Hayden's work can help to begin a radically new and overdue discussion about Europe's approach to migration and borders’ Sally Rooney, author of Intermezzo
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‘Brilliant, hugely important reportage on the ongoing situation many of us try to tune out’ Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups
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‘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 Shy
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‘Extremely good’ Mark O’Connell, author of Notes from an Apocalypse
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‘Compassionate, brave, enraging, beautifully written and incredibly well researched. Hayden exposes the truth’ Oliver Bullough, author of Everybody Loves Our Dollars
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‘One of the most important testaments of this awful time in life's history. It is both heartbreaking and stoic’ Edna O'Brien, author of The Little Red Chairs
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‘This vivid chronicle … may make you cry, but it should make you angry … A blistering rebuke’ Lindsey Hilsum, author of I Brought the War with Me
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‘A veritable masterclass in journalism … The most riveting, detailed and damning account ever written on the deadliest of migration routes’ Christina Lamb, author of Our Bodies Their Battlefields
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‘Heart-stopping … A vital book for anyone who wants to feel what it means to be human in the 21st century’ Fintan O’Toole, author of We Don’t Know Ourselves
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Sally Hayden
- Narrator
- Aoife McMahon
- Duration
- 13 hours 59 minutes
- Release Date
- 31 March 2022
- ISBN
- 9780008445607
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Genre
- Refugees and political asylum, Human rights, civil rights, Law: Human rights and civil liberties, True stories of survival of abuse and injustice
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE WINNER OF IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE ‘The most important work of contemporary reporting I have ever read’ SALLY ROONEY The Western world has turned its back on refugees, fuelling one of the most devastating human rights disasters in history. In August 2018, Sally Hayden received a Facebook message. ‘Hi sister Sally, we need your help,’ it read. ‘We are under bad condition in Libya prison. If you have time, I will tell you all the story.’ More messages followed from more refugees. They told stories of enslavement and trafficking, torture and murder, tuberculosis and sexual abuse. And they revealed something else: that they were all incarcerated as a direct result of European policy. From there began a staggering investigation into the migrant crisis across North Africa. This book follows the shocking experiences of refugees seeking sanctuary, but it also surveys the bigger picture: the negligence of NGOs and corruption within the United Nations. The economics of the twenty-first-century slave trade and the EU’s bankrolling of Libyan militias. The trials of people smugglers, the frustrations of aid workers, the loopholes refugees seek out and the role of social media in crowdfunding ransoms. Who was accountable for the abuse? Where were the people finding solutions? Why wasn’t it being widely reported? At its heart, this is a book about people who have made unimaginable choices, risking everything to survive in a system that wants them to be silent and disappear. **This is Also a Love Story, the latest book from Sally Hayden is available to preorder now** ‘One of the most important testaments of this awful time in life's history’ EDNA O'BRIEN, author of The Little Red Chairs ‘A journalistic masterpiece … absolutely demands to be read’ MAX PORTER, author of Shy ‘Compassionate, brave, enraging … Hayden exposes the truth’ OLIVER BULLOUGH, author of Everybody Loves Our Dollars
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