Neha Dixit’s ‘The Many Lives of Syeda X’ longlisted for 2025 Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing

Journalist Neha Dixit’s The Many Lives of Syeda X, which follows the life of a faceless working Indian woman from Varanasi to Delhi over 30 years, has been longlisted for the 2025 Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing, given every year by the Christopher G Moore Foundation in the UK. The longlist was chosen by a three-member jury from 70 titles that were submitted. The shortlist will be announced on Wednesday, 12 November, 2025 and the winning book on Wednesday, 7 January, 2026. The winner of the prize will receive £1,000.

The Many Lives of Syeda X has been published by Footnote Press in the UK and Juggernaut Books in India. The Scroll review of the book said: “By tracing one woman’s negotiations with the exigencies of global markets and rising socio-political strife in the country, it casts light on the lives of those who serve as the backbone of our economy and yet remain among the most marginalised and vulnerable groups in modern India – migrants, especially women urban migrants.”

The 2025 long-listed titles are:

Looking at Women Looking at War – A War and Justice Diary by Victoria Amelina, William Collins
Prosecuting the Powerful – War Crimes and the Battle for Justice by Steve Crawshaw, Little Brown
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove – China’s Stolen Children and the Story of Separated Twins by Barbara Demick, Granta
The Many Lives of Syeda X – A People’s History of Invisible India by Neha Dixit, Footnote Press
Anywhere But Here – How Britain’s Broken Asylum System Fails Us All by Nicola Kelly, Elliott and Thompson Ltd
An Inconvenient Place by Jonathan Littell and Antoine d’Agata, translated by Charlotte Mandell, Fitzcarraldo Editions
Radio Free Afghanistan – A Twenty-Year Odyssey for an Independent Voice in Kabul by Saad Mohseni with Jenna Krajeski, William Collins
Every Body Counts – Money, Lies and the Hidden Trade in Human Lives by Barbie Latza Nadeau, Ithaca
Same River, Twice – Putin’s War on Women by Sofi Oksanen, translated by Owen F Witesman, HarperVia, HarperCollins