Essay on Refugees, Published in ‘The Wire’, Receives US Foreign Press Correspondents' Award

New Delhi: Ankita Mukhopadhyay, 2022 Post-Grad Reporting Fellow, was awarded the Professional Excellence Award by the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the US (AFPC-USA) for her Pulitzer Center-supported story, Seeking Refuge: The Story of Two Women I Know, published in The Wire.

Seeking Refuge follows the connected stories of two women: Samira Faizi, an Afghan refugee living in India since 2021, and Ankita's grandmother, Pratima Mukhopadhyay, who moved to India from present-day Bangladesh in 1947 during the Partition of India.

Mukhopadhyay's piece explores the commonalities among generations of displaced refugees and critiques the power structures affecting migrants.

"No one becomes a refugee by choice," Mukhopadhyay writes. "Everyone wants to live in the country they were born in, and lead a good life there. But what happens when your country is taken away from you?"

Mukhopadhyay also directed an accompanying Center-supported documentary, Far From Home, set to premiere at the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival in 2024.

She graduated with a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2022. She also holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science and has worked for POLITICO, Deutsche Welle, and The Economist Intelligence Unit in India.

Each year, the Professional Excellence Award recognises outstanding US-based international journalists working for international outlets. The $3,000 award is granted based on one written or multimedia work of the applicant’s choosing.

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