Sarah Wynn-Williams and Virginia Giuffre jointly win freedom to publish prize at British book awards | Books

Meta tipster Sarah Wynn-Williams and the late Virginia Giuffre jointly won the Freedom to Publish award at this year’s British Book Awards; This marks the first time the prize has been shared.

Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook executive, became known for her best-selling memoir, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, about her years at Meta, formerly Facebook. The book includes allegations about the company’s internal culture and practices, including its approach to political influence, China and youth welfare. Meta disputed the allegations.

Giuffre received the award posthumously for Nobody’s Daughter: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, which chronicles the abuse she says she suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and others.

The award, presented by Yulia Navalnaya and supported by the freedom of expression organization Index on Censorship, was established in 2022 to highlight threats to authors, publishers and bookstores and to reward those who resist censorship attempts.

Wynn-Williams, who spoke at the ceremony, has made a rare public appearance to warn about the growing influence of wealthy elites over public discourse and institutions.

“We all live in a world more dominated than ever by networks of powerful elites whose wealth often puts them above the law,” he said. “As they rewrite the rules, they become arrogant about power and impunity.”

Wynn-Williams has faced legal restrictions since the publication of Careless People. Meta received a legal order preventing him from publicly discussing aspects of the book before publication, and he faced a $50,000 fine each time he violated the order.

Citing Giuffre’s memoir, Wynn-Williams said: “Virginia realized who silence protected, and realized that only the truth could protect everyone else.” He added that Giuffre faced “coordinated pressure efforts, intimidation, and lawsuits” after speaking publicly about Epstein and Maxwell.

“But there’s something weird here,” Wynn-Williams said. “When you try so hard to silence a woman who is telling the truth, you are announcing to the world that the truth is very dangerous indeed.”

“Virginia spent years exhausted by a war she should never have had to fight,” he continued. “He didn’t get the ending his story deserved.”

Mike Harpley, publisher of Pan Macmillan, praised Wynn-Williams’ “astonishing courage” in writing Careless People.

“He now faces the significant personal, legal and financial cost of bringing to light important issues of public concern, both here, in the UK and internationally,” he said. “It is a breathtaking irony that he cannot participate in the conversation, silenced by a company that claims to support free speech, while his book sparks a global reckoning with social media.”

Giuffre killed herself in April 2025, shortly before the release of Nobody’s Daughter. In 2020, she began working with journalist Amy Wallace on the memoir, which documents both the harassment she claims to have suffered and the years she spent fighting against powerful people and institutions. He was one of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s leading accusers, who has repeatedly and forcefully denied the accusations.

Accepting the award in a recorded message, Wallace said: “We worked together for more than four years, and it has been the honor of my career… He always wanted this book to reach as many people as possible, and in particular he wanted it to help other survivors of sexual abuse, not just those who suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but anyone who was forced into a sexual situation, and he clearly did that.”

Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, said she “inspired millions upon millions” by “speaking truth to power” and added that she showed “an ordinary person can do extraordinary things.”

The Freedom to Publish award has previously been given to authors including Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Boris Akunin, whose books were banned in Russia following their criticism of Vladimir Putin.

Jemimah Steinfeld, chief executive of Index on Censorship, said the two books showed “how the rich and powerful use legal pressure to silence those with less capital”. “The circumstances are very different and the stories are morally incomparable,” Steinfeld said, “but they share similarities.”

The British Book Awards celebrate authors, publishers and industry professionals across the UK book trade in association with trade publisher The Bookseller. Elsewhere in this year’s awards, AF Steadman was named writer of the year, Philippa Gregory Boleyn won the fiction prize for Traitor and Florence Knapp scooped the first fiction book of the year award for The Names, a bestselling novel exploring the long-term effects of domestic violence.