East West Street: Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize

(Paperback)

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THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017

WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE and THE JQ-WINGATE LITERARY PRIZE

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER

'A monumental achievement: profoundly personal, told with love, anger and great precision' John le Carre

'One of the most gripping and powerful books imaginable' SUNDAY TIMES

When he receives an invitation to deliver a lecture in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, international lawyer Philippe Sands begins a journey on the trail of his family's secret history. In doing so, he uncovers an astonishing series of coincidences that lead him halfway across the world, to the origins of international law at the Nuremberg trial. Interweaving the stories of the two Nuremberg prosecutors (Hersch Lauterpacht and Rafael Lemkin) who invented the crimes or genocide and crimes against humanity, the Nazi governor responsible for the murder of thousands in and around Lviv (Hans Frank), and incredible acts of wartime bravery, EAST WEST STREET is an unforgettable blend of memoir and historical detective story, and a powerful meditation on the way memory, crime and guilt leave scars across generations.

WINNER OF THE HAY FESTIVAL MEDAL FOR PROSE 2017

Reviews

A monumental achievement: profoundly personal, told with love, anger and great precision

Engrossing . . . Sands has written a remarkable and enjoyable book, deftly weaving his own family history into a lively account of the travails of the early campaigners for international human rights law - LITERARY REVIEW

A vivid and readable contribution, part memoir, part documentary, to the history debate ... Much of the most compelling material in this book is personal ... Moving and powerful - FINANCIAL TIMES

In a triumph of astonishing research, Sands has brilliantly woven together several family stories which lead to the great denouement at the Nuremberg tribunal. No novel could possibly match such an important work of truth

A narrative to my knowledge unprecedented . . . We have in Sands's EAST WEST STREET a machine of power and beauty that should not be ignored by anyone - NEW YORK TIMES

Dazzling, shatttering. East West Street is one of the most extraordinary books that I have ever read.

Author Bio

Philippe Sands is Professor of Law at UCL and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers. He has been involved in many of the most important international cases of recent years, including Pinochet, Congo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq, Guantanamo and the Rohingya. He is the author of LAWLESS, TORTURE TEAM, EAST WEST STREET, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction, and Sunday Times bestselling THE RATLINE. He is a contributor to the Financial Times, Guardian, New York Review of Books and Vanity Fair, and makes regular appearances on radio and television. He is President of English PEN and a member of the board of the Hay Festival.