Former Mid Wales war reporter wins 2019 Costa Book of the Year award
A former war reporter from mid Wales has won the 2019 Costa Book of the Year award.
The Volunteer, by Jack Fairweather, tells the true story of a Polish underground operative Witold Pilecki, who infiltrated Auschwitz and spread news of the Holocaust to the Allies.
It was announced as the winner by Costa Coffee chief executive Jill McDonald at an awards ceremony in London the day after the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Mr Fairweather. from Abermule, near Newtown, said his subject was "one of the great heroes" of the Second World War.
He added: "He was there at the apex of mankind's worst acts and found in himself the courage to resist.
"Anyone who reads the book will feel as inspired as I was."
He also said Pilecki's story contained a strong message for us today.
The Volunteer tells the story of Pilecki, a Polish resistance fighter during the Second World War who volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz.
'Incredible'
He forged an underground army, sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi officers, gathered evidence of the mass murder of the Jews and spread news of the Holocaust to the Allies.
The Volunteer's win, following that of The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es last year, means that for two years in a row a biography exploring this period of history has been named Costa Book of the Year.
Chairman of the judges, Sian Williams, said: "The judges were unanimous in choosing The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather.
"It's an incredible story; pacy like a thriller, it reads like fiction and yet it's not, it is fact.
"It is a story none of us have read before - this is an extraordinary and important book that people need to read."
The book is published by WH Allen.
Mr Fairweather, a former Telegraph and Washington Post Reporter, has also written A War of Choice, about the Iraq war, and The Good War: The Battle for Afghanistan. He spent a year in Afghanistan from 2007 researching The Good War.
A War of Choice was written after Mr Fairweather's three-year stint as the Daily Telegraph’s Baghdad Bureau Chief after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
