Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Learn about the Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America: https://duke.is/y/7dp3
The 2026 winner of the Méndez Book Award is "A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children," by Haley Cohen Gilliland. In the book, Gilliland documents how the Argentine Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo set out to find their grandchildren, abducted by the military junta in the 1970s and 80s. With determination and creativity, the abuelas marched, confronted the authorities, allied with local and international human rights groups, and pioneered the use of genetic testing to find their loved ones. This is despite the intense grief of losing their adult children, "disappeared" by the security forces.
Haley Cohen Gilliland is a journalist and the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative. Find her book here:
simonandschuster.com/books/A-Flower-Traveled-in-My-Blood/Haley-Cohen-Gilliland/9781668017142
First awarded in 2008, the Méndez Human Rights Book Award honors the best current non-fiction book published in English on human rights, democracy, and social justice in contemporary Latin America. The books are evaluated by a panel of expert judges drawn from academia, journalism, human rights, and public policy circles.
The award is co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at Duke University and is given in conjunction with the Human Rights Archive at Duke’s Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The Duke Human Rights Center @ the Franklin Humanities Institute brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, staff and students to promote new understandings of and action on human rights. Their goal is to foster strategies and collaborative, cross-disciplinary and critical thinking about human rights in both local and global contexts. The Center is committed to social justice.
Learn about the Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America: https://duke.is/y/7dp3
The 2026 winner of the Méndez Book Award is "A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children," by Haley Cohen Gilliland. In the book, Gilliland documents how the Argentine Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo set out to find their grandchildren, abducted by the military junta in the 1970s and 80s. With determination and creativity, the abuelas marched, confronted the authorities, allied with local and international human rights groups, and pioneered the use of genetic testing to find their loved ones. This is despite the intense grief of losing their adult children, "disappeared" by the security forces.
Haley Cohen Gilliland is a journalist and the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative. Find her book here:
simonandschuster.com/books/A-Flower-Traveled-in-My-Blood/Haley-Cohen-Gilliland/9781668017142
First awarded in 2008, the Méndez Human Rights Book Award honors the best current non-fiction book published in English on human rights, democracy, and social justice in contemporary Latin America. The books are evaluated by a panel of expert judges drawn from academia, journalism, human rights, and public policy circles.
The award is co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at Duke University and is given in conjunction with the Human Rights Archive at Duke’s Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The Duke Human Rights Center @ the Franklin Humanities Institute brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, staff and students to promote new understandings of and action on human rights. Their goal is to foster strategies and collaborative, cross-disciplinary and critical thinking about human rights in both local and global contexts. The Center is committed to social justice.
