Blood Lands – a truly South African story about racial tension between white farmers and black rural inhabitants that resulted in a double murder – has won the PRIX EUROPA Best European Radio Investigation of the Year 2021 award.
Blood Lands is a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) United Kingdom series for Radio 4.
“Our series, Blood Lands, just won best radio investigation at @Pixeuropa,” tweeted author Andrew Harding, BBC’s Africa correspondent based in Johannesburg.
The announcement was made on Saturday.
On his website, Harding writes: “This is my radio series and podcast, for the BBC, based on the same true story – a double murder investigation in small-town South Africa – as my book, These Are Not Gentle People”.
The story has won over pundits across the globe..
“Excellent, evocative, important true crime series,” said Jason Burke, The Guardian.
“A masterclass of concise storytelling,” said Radio Times.
“One of the finest examples of journalism from South Africa, broadcast or print, I have encountered in the nigh-on 45 years since I arrived in Johannesburg to re-open a bureau closed 10 years earlier by Hendrik Verwoerd,” said John F Burns, New York Times.
“You and your editors have excelled in the telling of a powerful story that is deeply redolent of the legacy of apartheid in the rural heartland of South Africa.”
Directed by Bridget Harney and produced by Becky Lipscombe, the podcast is available to listen on BBC Sounds – just search for “Blood Lands” or for “Seriously.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08r24qn
