2024 IPA Prix Voltaire awarded to Samir Mansour with Special Award for Victoria Amelina
Palestinian publisher Samir Mansour was awarded the 2024 International Publishers Association’s Prix Voltaire at the award ceremony of the 34th International Publishers Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. The IPA also announced a Prix Voltaire Special Award for murdered Ukrainian author, Victoria Amelina.
The ceremony also paid tribute to the first laureate of the then IPA Freedom to Publish Prize, Shahla Lahiji (Iran), who passed away in February 2024, and 2009 laureate Sihem Bensedrine (Tunisia), who was arrested earlier this year and remains in detention.
Kristenn Einarsson, Chair of the IPA’s Freedom to Publish Committee said: Before, during, and post conflict, the role of publishers is monumental. Peace is only possible in a society that welcomes education, values the exchange of diverse ideas, and promotes innovation, conversation, and compromise. This is why books as builders of empathy and sources of cultural knowledge, and the publishers that produce and protect them, serve as cultural institutions that promote peace and progress. Authoritarian governments and other powerful entities often tighten control over information during conflicts, imposing strict censorship and disseminating propaganda. Publishers not only face personal destruction in conflict, but may also face threats such as violence, imprisonment, or even death for publishing materials that are perceived as controversial. Those committed to freedom of expression have navigated these treacherous waters, often working clandestinely, in exile, or even in a context of war, in order to ensure the dissemination of knowledge.
Accepting the 2024 IPA Prix Voltaire Samir Mansour delivered a video address. He said: I would like to thank everyone who supported the IPA Prix Voltaire and the International Publishers Association. In 2021 my bookshop was completely destroyed. It was rebuilt in 2022. During the current war, the bookshop was also destroyed again and the second branch of the library bookshop was destroyed. However, I am still continuing my work which I grew up with and was raised in since my childhood. I am still publishing despite being on the Gaza strip. God willing us, we will continue to publish and print, no matter how difficult the circumstances we are living today. We will continue.
Karine Pansa, President of the IPA said: Our two laureates this year as well as our shortlist encourage us to think about the role of publishing for peace and the relationship between conflict and publishing. This year’s Prix Voltaire laureate and nominees embody publishers’ efforts to promote books and the dissemination of information to prevent conflict and foster peace, even while facing extreme dangers themselves. Their commitment to publishing and the dissemination of knowledge becomes a beacon of hope amidst immense devastation.
The ceremony’s tribute to Victoria Amelina used footage from the 2023 IPA Prix Voltaire ceremony where Amelina had said: I am a Ukrainian writer speaking on behalf of my colleague Volodymyr Vakulenko who, unlike me, didn’t survive another attempt of the Russian Empire to erase Ukrainian identity. The Ukrainian literary community is grateful for the award. This award is unique, meaningful, and moving to us, partly because no one out of hundreds of other Ukrainian writers who, like Vakulenko, were murdered throughout Ukrainian history ever received such an international award posthumously. I am sure that Volodymyr Vakulenko would like to dedicate this award to them too.
The Special Award will be presented to Oleksandra Matviichuk, CEO of the Center for Civil Liberties (Nobel Peace Prize 2022) on the 2nd day of the Congress on the occasion of her keynote speech.
