Moore Prize goes posthumously to Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina

Ukrainian writer and journalist Victoria Amelina, who was killed in 2023 in a Russian strike on the city of Kramatorsk, has been posthumously awarded the 2025 Moore Prize for human rights writing.

Source: Christopher G. Moore Foundation

Details: Amelina's unfinished book Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary was named the best human rights book published between July 2024 and June 2025.

Quote from Christopher G Moore, Foundation Founder: "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."

More details: Amelina announced the book at the 29th BookForum in Lviv, saying she was writing in English about Ukrainian women who, in different ways, seek justice.

The book features the perspective of numerous women: a documentation specialist for war crime watchdog Truth Hounds, alias Kazanova; reporters Yevheniia Podobna and Vira Kuryko-Ahiienko; human rights advocates Oleksandra Matviichuk, Larysa Denysenko and Kateryna Rashevska; historian Olena Stiazhkina; writer Svitlana Povaliaieva; Kharkiv Literary Museum Director Tetiana Pylypchuk; librarian Yuliia Kakulia-Danyliuk; lawyer and soldier Yevheniia Zakrevska; civic activist Iryna Dovhan; and poet Iryna Novitska, the former wife of murdered writer Volodymyr Vakulenko. The photographs for the book were taken by Yuliia Kochetova.

Amelina did not manage to finish the manuscript before she was fatally injured in Kramatorsk in 2023, but her friends and colleagues Tetiana Teren, Yaryna Hrusha, Sasha Dovzhyk and Oleksandr Amelin prepared the book from drafts, audio recordings and notes. It was published by William Collins, with a foreword by Margaret Atwood.

The Moore Prize is awarded for non-fiction exploring dignity, freedom and human rights. This year's jury included journalist Clare Hammond, Human Rights Watch's Asia Director Elaine Pearson and Vilnius University professor Dr Dainius Pūras.

Amelina has also been posthumously awarded the British Orwell Prize for her book Looking at Women Looking at War.

Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer and public figure, was a laureate of the Joseph Conrad-Korzeniowski Literary Prize and a nominee for the Angelus Central European Literary Award.

After the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, she paused fiction writing to join Truth Hounds, a watchdog documenting human rights abuses and war crimes committed in Ukraine, and participated in Ukrainian PEN charity trips to liberated territories.

Amelina was injured during a Russian missile attack on a Kramatorsk café on 27 June 2023, while accompanying a delegation of Colombian writers and journalists. Despite doctors' efforts, she died on 1 July 2023.

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