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. Finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Little official help came. “I used to be afraid of smugglers in Libya,” said one refugee; “now I’m afraid of organisations that claim humanity.” Hayden’s meticulous and humane reporting is particularly scathing of the actions of the UNHCR and its UN partner, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). She reveals deep corruption, arrogance and inhumanity. Elkins’ Legacy of Violence is a look at the empire’s use of violence, and was described by the judges as “one of those books that feels inarguable”. They called it an “astonishing panorama of the British empire in the 20th century, it is fascinating and mind-changing”. 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 clandestine migrant boat at Lampedusa harbor, Italy Journalist Sally Hayden documents the poignant stories of migrants crossing the Central Mediterranean Route, the most dangerous migrant crossing in the world

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Sally Hayden is an award-winning journalist and photographer currently focused on migration, conflict and humanitarian crises. Through its screen she saw horrors that Europe was intent on ignoring, disappearing photos and videos from disappearing people. “What is it like,” she reflects, “to watch innocent people being shot through Facebook Messenger?” Jarring messages interject in Hayden’s text the way they must have flashed as notifications on her phone. “They are beating and shooting us. There’s no food, no water. The children are crying, starving. Please.” The shortlist for the prize, which recognises the best nonfiction of the year, was chosen from a longlist of 12, which was selected from 362 books. Zeno, 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). Hayden’s narrative is interspersed with quotes from text messages she has received, which purposefully break the flow of the story, successfully simulating the fractured nature of how events occurred.

Hayden introduces her story with her receiving a Facebook message from a Libyan jail in August 2018, going on to briefly describe the situation for refugees/asylum seekers/economic migrants in Libya. My Fourth Time, We Drowned is compassionate, brave, enraging, beautifully written and incredibly well researched. Hayden exposes the truth about years of grotesque abuse committed against some of the world’s most vulnerable people in all of our names. After this, none of us can say we didn’t know.” — Oliver Bullough, author of ‘Moneyland’ Further south, refugees from other wars and famines still arrive in Libya at the gates of Fortress Europe, where thousands remain in detention. “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil,” wrote one detained Eritrean refugee, “but by those who watch them without doing anything.” The noted conservative economist delivers arguments both fiscal and political against social justice initiatives such as welfare and a federal minimum wage. Hayden’s powerful book relays the harrowing stories migrants have shared with her from their experiences in various Libyan migrant detention centers, from enduring near-starvation conditions to torture and even death…an accessible, critically reported account…” – – The Washington PostBoth 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,” Jean Seaton, the director of the Orwell Foundation, said. “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.” The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils 2022: The Cost of Covid – Burnley Crisis by Ed Thomas (BBC News)

Your most treasured possession?: My laptop and camera, and various gifts from people I’ve met across the world.

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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