[ About This is Also a Love Story by Sally Hayden ]
We live in an era defined by crisis – whether it be war and displacement, or climate collapse and rapidly widening inequality. Acclaimed international correspondent Sally Hayden has spent her career covering some of the darkest moments of our time, and yet even in the face of unimaginable adversity, she’s witnessed the love and care of everyday people.
Hayden introduces us to a couple separated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a mother in northeast Nigeria who risks everything to save her daughter from forced marriage to Boko Haram militants. We meet a group of Syrian women searching tirelessly for their missing spouses and children, while launching a call for justice, and learn about letters from the bereaved to the dead, still being written over a decade after the tsunami that devastated Japan.
In stories that crisscross the globe, from Uganda to Lebanon, Rwanda to Iraq, Hayden asks us: what if news was recounted through the actions people take for those they love? Would it become harder to dehumanise those who seem different to us? This is Also a Love Story dares us to recognise how love can be found in even the most difficult of times, and to question what might be needed to create a better world.
[ My Review ]
This is Also A Love Story: Searching for Good in a Divided World by Sally Hayden published May 21st with 4th Estate and is described as ‘a powerful account of human resilience, capturing our capacity for love and connection against all the odds’.
We are all battered by the constant onslaught of tragic events that are ongoing in the world today. Every media outlet from print to digital, on our screens and etched in our minds, are images that we wished we had never seen. But imagine witnessing these scenes over and over again. Imagine willingly putting yourself into fragile and dangerous places where communities have experienced unbearable tragedies. Imagine looking for those brief moments where love shines through in all its varied forms. Irish journalist and author, Sally Hayden, didn’t just imagine doing any of these things, she did them.
‘Reportage can be cold and exacting. Journalism is the first draft of history, but it only offers fragments of a wider truth. What can go missing in that initial retelling is a much fuller tapestry of human behaviour, interactions, and the connections that drive them. Statistics do not tell us about someone’s hopes and dreams, their skills and weaknesses, or who and what they live for. People are much more than the worst thing that has ever happened to them.’ – Sally Hayden
Sally Hayden embarked on a journey across continents where she met incredible bravery and optimism forged from hardship and heartbreak. Consisting of nine chapters, the book delves into the lives of different communities in Ukraine, Rwanda, Iraq, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Lebanon, Syria and Japan. She encountered stories that chill and anger, but she chose to search for the brightness, chatting to exceptional people who have endured (and still continue to) great pain and suffering.
Based in Beirut, Sally Hayden is witness to humanity at its worst and best. She is living a life that is incomprehensible to most of us. Her words take us behind the shattered walls, the shattered dreams, the shattered lives right into the hearts of people who are suffering so much. Her search for the beauty in all this carnage is staggering but she succeeds, with these moving accounts of goodness amidst acts of evil.
Sally Hayden’s vivid descriptions are stunning and the empathy she has for her fellow human being is tangible. There is no glory in war. There is no glory in slaughter. There is no glory is violence. There is no voyeuristic sensationalism in catastrophic climatic events. With authenticity, humility and love, Sally Hayden bears witness to the society we live in today. Reading This is Also A Love Story: Searching for Good in a Divided World provides some hope that perhaps, with passion and empathy, and looking at our world through a wider lens, humanity will step up and pay heed to the impact of decisions being made by those who are driven by greed and the thirst for power. Born out of an extraordinary vision This is Also A Love Story: Searching for Good in a Divided World is an exceptional and striking read, one I highly recommend to all.
[Thank you to Harper Collins Ireland for a copy of This is Also A Love Story in exchange for my honest review]
[ Bio ]
Sally Hayden is an award-winning journalist, photographer and author. Her first book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route – about the treatment of refugees trying to seek safety in Europe – won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, the An Post Irish Book of the Year Award, the Michel Déon Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.
Thanks for bringing this book to my attention, Mairéad. I have added this to my WTR shelf and I liked the concept of how these events effect people. Brings it home more than just the news.
That’s exactly it Carla. She goes much deeper into the personal impact & how communities/people are fighting back.