Sonia Faleiro – författare

**Longlisted for the ALCS Gold Non-Fiction Dagger****Longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2022**‘Haunting … lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned’ Sunday Times‘A compelling whodunnit ... Devastating’ Financial Times‘Transfixing’ New York Times‘A powerful, unflinching account of misogyny, female shame and the notion of honour’ Observer___________________A masterly and agenda-setting inquest into how the deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation Katra Sadatganj. A tiny village in western Uttar Pradesh. A community bounded by tradition and custom; where young women are watched closely, and know what is expected of them. It was an ordinary night when two girls, Padma and Lalli, went missing. The next day, their bodies were found – hanging in the orchard, their clothes muddied. In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigated a national conversation about sex, honour and violence. The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli’s short lives and shocking deaths, daring to ask: what is the human cost of shame?

Gaza: The Story of a Genocide is an urgent and powerful collection of personal testimony, poetry, art, and frontline reportage. Together, these works bear witness to the vast and ongoing destruction in­flicted on the Palestinian people-their lives, their land, and their future.Ahmed Alnaouq recounts the devastating loss of twenty-one family members. Noor Alyacoubi offers a searing reflection on starvation. Mariam Barghouti examines the brutality of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, while Eman Bashir describes the phenomenon of a "wounded child, no surviving family." These voices, among many others, illuminate the endur­ing psychological, physical, and generational toll of state violence.With contributions from recipients of the Palestine Book Award, Arab American Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, Emmy Award, National Book Award, and Gandhi Peace Award, this collection also honors the late poet Hiba Abu Nada-killed in an Israeli airstrike on her home in Khan Younis, Gaza, on October 20, 2023.All royalties will be donated directly to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

When the robe becomes a weapon, who can stop the violence?We think of Buddhism as a faith of peace—rooted in compassion, patience, and nonviolence. But across South and Southeast Asia today, the robe is being turned into a weapon as radical monks and nationalist movements unleash hatred and war.In The Robe and the Sword, acclaimed journalist Sonia Faleiro travels from Sri Lanka’s riot-scarred towns to the homes of refugees along the Myanmar border to Thailand’s fortified temples, uncovering how militant monks have transformed a tradition of nonviolence into a tool of terror. She reveals how Sri Lanka’s Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara incited mobs against Muslims, how Myanmar’s Ashin Wirathu helped ignite a genocide, and how elements of Thailand’s clergy have entrenched military rule.Through vivid portraits of zealots, survivors, and dissident monks fighting to reclaim their faith, Faleiro delivers an unflinching investigation into the colonial trauma, economic grievances, and political forces fueling a dangerous new extremism. The Robe and the Sword is a searing and indispensable work of narrative nonfiction, urgently needed to understand how sacred traditions are being weaponized—and what is at stake for the future of our interconnected world.