Sarah Topol is the winner of the twenty second annual Michael Kelly Award for “The Deserter: An Epic Story of Love and Struggle,” revealed final 12 months by The New York Instances Journal. Topol’s shifting, five-part function is a few fight officer who abandoned from the Russian military and, collectively together with his spouse, defected to the West; Topol additionally spoke with 18 different Russian defectors for her reporting.
The award was introduced this morning on the sixteenth annual Atlantic Pageant in New York Metropolis. From her acceptance speech, Topol stated: “Now greater than ever, we should proceed to be important, to query accepted narratives, to be courageous, and to hunt a larger understanding of this chaotic and harmful time, even at private threat. I can solely proceed to aspire to take action in such stunning, sharp, unique and incisive sentences as Kelly did.”
Of their commendation, the judges praised Topol’s painstaking reporting and textured writing. Her 35,000-word narrative, they observe, “has the propulsive energy of a novel, providing readers a uniquely intimate take a look at the Russian army, its historical past, its corruption, and the horrific calls for positioned on troopers.” Topol is a contributing author at The New York Instances Journal. She shall be awarded a prize of $25,000.
Offered by The Atlantic, the Michael Kelly Award honors journalists whose work exemplifies “the fearless pursuit and expression of reality,” which outlined Michael Kelly’s personal life and profession. Kelly was the primary journalist killed in the midst of the Iraq Struggle, in 2003. He served as editor of The Atlantic and Nationwide Journal when each magazines had been publications of Atlantic Media, chaired by David G. Bradley. Bradley created the award in Kelly’s honor.
Journalists from two different information organizations had been acknowledged as finalists: Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme, and Jessica Gallagher, at The Baltimore Banner, for his or her years-long investigation into Baltimore’s overdose disaster; and Olivia Carville and Cecilia D’Anastasio, at Bloomberg Businessweek, for his or her pressing reporting on youngsters’s on-line security.
5 judges chosen the winner and the finalists: Mark Feeney, a Pulitzer Prize–successful critic and author at The Boston Globe; Tyler Austin Harper, a employees author at The Atlantic; Hannah Dreier, a previous winner of the Michael Kelly Award and a Pulitzer Prize–successful reporter at The New York Instances; Ena Alvarado, a author and former assistant editor at The Atlantic; and Cullen Murphy, the editor at massive of The Atlantic.
Extra details about Michael Kelly and the award in his honor could be discovered at www.michaelkellyaward.com.
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Anna Bross | The Atlantic
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