Victoria Amelina, who tragically lost her life in 2023 during a Russian shelling in Kramatorsk, was posthumously awarded the British Orwell Prize. She received this honor for her book "Looking at Women, Looking at War".

This announcement was made on the official page of the prize on social media.

Chair of the jury, Kim Darroch, described Amelina's work as "an unforgettable portrayal of the human consequences of war".

The writer was awarded in the category of "Political Non-Fiction". Her book in English, published in the UK in February 2025, combines diary entries, interviews, reports from war crime sites, and poetry.

Amelina announced her book at the 29th BookForum in Lviv, sharing that she was writing about Ukrainian women who are "trying in various ways to seek justice".

Sadly, Amelina did not manage to finish her book as she died from injuries sustained in Kramatorsk.

The heroines of her book include: the Truth Hounds documentarian known as "Casanova", reporters Yevheniya Podobna and Vira Kuriko-Ahiyenko, human rights defenders Oleksandra Matviichuk, Larysa Denysenko, Kateryna Rashevska, historian Olena Styazhkina, writer Svitlana Povaliaieva, director of the Kharkiv Literary Museum Tetiana Pylypchuk, librarian Yuliia Kakulia-Danyliuk, lawyer and soldier Yevheniya Zakrevska, activist Iryna Dovhan, poet and former wife of the murdered writer Volodymyr Vakulenko Iryna Novitska. The photos for the book were taken by Yuliia Kochetova.

Victoria Amelina's book was published by William Collins, with a foreword written by Margaret Atwood.

The Orwell Prize is awarded annually for political literature in four categories: fiction, non-fiction, journalism, and exposing social evils in Britain. Each winner is chosen based on the work that best embodies Orwell's ambition to "turn political writing into art".

Victoria Amelina was a Ukrainian writer and public figure who also received the Joseph Conrad-Korzeniowski Literary Prize and was nominated for the Central European Literary Award Angelus.

After the onset of the full-scale invasion, Victoria halted her creative writing and became a member of the Truth Hounds organization to document human rights violations.

She also participated in charitable trips organized by the Ukrainian PEN writers to the liberated territories.

Victoria was injured in a missile strike on a café in Kramatorsk on June 27, 2023, while accompanying a delegation of writers and journalists from Colombia.

Despite the efforts of the medical team, Victoria passed away on July 1, 2023.