Professor Philippe Sands QC, Professor of Law at UCL Faculty of Laws, has won the 2017 Jewish Quarterly Wingate literary prize, alongside author Ayelet Gundar-Gosher, for his book East West Street; On the Origins of Crimes Against Humanity.
The annual JQ-Wingate prize, run in partnership with JW3, is awarded to the best book or books – fiction or non-fiction – of Jewish interest for the general reader.
Professor Philippe Sands QC said:
‘It is a humbling privilege to be awarded the JQ Wingate Prize, all the more so in its 40th years, and alongside Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, whose work I so deeply admire and enjoy. East West Street is an intensely personal book, written with a multitude of purposes. In the writing I can hardly claim that it was my intention to offer an idea of Jewishness to a general reader, but I can see how in the result that consequence might have arisen.
Leon, Lauterpacht and Lemkin were remarkable individuals, each experiencing a long period of deep darkness simply because they happened to belong to the wrong group, yet somehow managing to find a crack of light. Perhaps it is that universal theme – needed once again in these days – that is so very Wingate.’