2024 IPA Prix Voltaire Goes to Gaza-based Publisher Samir Mansour

DECEMBER 5, 2024 — Last night, the International Publishers Association announced that the 2024 IPA Prix Voltaire had been awarded to Palestinian publisher Samir Mansour, at a ceremony held during the International Publishers Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. The IPA also announced a Prix Voltaire Special Award for murdered Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina.

Thanks to publisher Lawrence Schimel for taking this video.

In his acceptance address, delivered by video from Gaza, Mansour said, in part:

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.

Organizers write that Mansour, proprietor of Samir Mansour Bookshop for Printing and Publishing, “has been a critical part of the local community in Gaza, publishing the works of Palestinian authors and housing thousands of books in various languages. …. The bookshop has continued its efforts to bring books to Palestinian youth, visiting evacuation centres and providing books and gift packages to displaced children.”

The IPA Prix Voltaire comes with a CHF 10,000 prize. Previous laureates include Egyptian publisher Khaled Lotfy and Lebanon’s Dar Al Jadeed.