Pulitzer Center Grantee Patrick Brown Wins 2019 FotoEvidence Book Award With World Press Photo

On February 20, 2019, Pulitzer Center grantee Patrick Brown won the 2019 FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo. The award recognizes Brown's photography documenting the plight of the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority group in Myanmar that has been forced to flee the country in the hundreds of thousands due to state-sponsored persecution. This includes his photography for the Pulitzer Center-funded  Rolling Stone article "Survivors of the Rohingya Genocide." 

The work will be featured in a book titled No Place on Earth, also supported in part by the Pulitzer Center, which will launch in conjunction with the 2019 World Press Photo Exhibition in Amsterdam.

Congratulations to the 2019 @FotoevidenceP Book Award with World Press Photo winner Patrick Brown (@Docography) & to all finalists. Brown's work ‘No Place On Earth’ on the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh will be published this year: https://t.co/jbgjZHLDZD pic.twitter.com/eZ8tcg5vcK

— World Press Photo (@WorldPressPhoto) February 20, 2019

Brown reflected on the brutality he witnessed in a statement about the book: “While euphemisms and diplomatic language can obscure the true horror inflicted by oppressive regimes, photography cuts through all the cold clinical terminology,” he said. “Through photographs we’re forced to confront the cruel reality of what ethnic cleansing really looks like.”

The annual FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo recognizes a documentary photographer whose project demonstrates courage and commitment in addressing a violation of human rights, a significant injustice or an assault on human dignity. The selected project will be published as part of a series of FotoEvidence books dedicated to long-form projects of documentary photographers working in the humanistic tradition.