On 5 December 2025, the International Publishers Association’s Freedom to Publish Committee announced a Prix Voltaire Special Award for murdered Ukrainian author, Victoria Amelina, at the award ceremony of the 34th International Publishers Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.

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.

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 was 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.

2024 IPA Prix Voltaire Special Award laureate, Victoria Amelina, put her fiction writing on hold during the war in Ukraine to become a war crimes investigator. She gathered testimonies from survivors and witnesses of the war, also ensuring to document the killings of fellow writers, including 2003’s Special Award recipient, Volodymyr Vakulenko. Victoria found Vakulenko’s occupation diaries hidden in his family’s garden and played a key role in bringing them to publication this year. Amelina had attended the 2023 Prix Voltaire ceremony to receive the Special Award on his behalf and brought the Prix Voltaire Special Award back to Ukraine, stopping at PEN Ukraine and then to Volodymyr Vakulenko’s house.

See her posts here and here.

 

About the Prix Voltaire Special Award

Periodically, the IPA Freedom to Publish Committee may confer the Prix Voltaire Special Award, a posthumous honour for individuals who have died recently for exercising their freedom of expression. The aim of the award is to give visibility to the laureate’s exceptional engagement for freedom of expression and expose how he or she was silenced. The award should promote the laureate’s legacy and support their family, friends and supporters, if necessary, by helping to ensure that the laureate and their case are not forgotten.

Recipients have typically demonstrated a courageous commitment to freedom of speech through lives spent writing, publishing, or in activism, and have been murdered, put to death, or lost their life in prison.