- Category
- Latest news
Ukrainian Author Posthumously Awarded Orwell Prize For Unfinished Book About Women and War
- Authors
![Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko]( "Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko")
Ukrainian writer Viktoria Amelina, who was killed in 2023 in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk, has been posthumously awarded the prestigious Orwell Prize for Political Writing. The honor was given for her unfinished book Looking at Women Looking at War.
The announcement was made on June 25 via the Orwell Prize’s official account on X.
“An unforgettable picture of the human consequences of war,” said jury chair Kim Darroch.
Victoria Amelina, killed by a Russian bomb in Ukraine on 1 July 2023, has posthumously won the 2025 Orwell Prize for Political Writing for Looking at Women, Looking at War.
— The Orwell Prize (@TheOrwellPrize) June 25, 2025
"An unforgettable picture of the human consequences of war." Kim Darroch, Chair of Judges@WmCollinsBooks pic.twitter.com/nVnCnXCjVz
Published in 2025 by William Collins with a foreword by Margaret Atwood, Amelina’s book blends diary entries, frontline interviews, reports from sites of war crimes, and poetry. It captures the war not just through events, but through the eyes of women who document and survive it.
According to Macmillian Publishing, among the women whose stories are woven into the book is Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights advocate leading the fight for international accountability for Russia’s war crimes. Another is Yevheniya, a lawyer who chose to take up arms and defend her country as a soldier. The book also tells the story of Yulia Kakulia-Danyliuk, a librarian who, during the Russian occupation, documented the horrors unfolding around her in a diary — preserving evidence of terror in real time.
On the evening of June 27, 2023, Viktoria Amelina stopped for dinner with three international writers in the war-torn Donetsk region. A Russian cruise missile struck the restaurant. Amelina sustained critical head injuries and lost consciousness. She died on July 1. She was thirty-seven.
Earlier, five Ukrainian illustrators were named to the longlist of the prestigious World Illustration Awards 2025. The artists — Viktoriia Kienko, Iryna Babanina, Jenya Polosnina, Yulia Gvylym, and Maria Tikhanova — were recognized for their unique voices and powerful visual storytelling.
