Tamara Opačić

Tamara Opačić was selected for the 2023 Shortlist with Silent Graves.

Tamara Opačić (1986) is a journalist at Novosti weekly and editor of the magazine Nada based in Zagreb. She is focused on human rights violations and social affairs. In 2021 she won ‘Marija Jurić Zagorka’ award for best-written journalism (Croatian Journalists’ Association), and in 2022 ‘Vesna Kesić’ award for investigative journalism (Fund for Others). In 2017, Tamara was selected for the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). She is the co-author of the books ‘Aleksandra Zec’ and ‘The Production of the Other: Serb Minority in Croatian Daily Newspapers’. Tamara holds a master’s degree in journalism and a postgraduate specialist degree in regional comparative studies of Central and Southeast Europe.

Maartje Bakker

Maartje Bakker was selected for the 2023 Shortlist with The long road to a home in Europe.

Maartje Bakker (Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 1985) studied Biology, with a minor in Journalism and in Spanish Language & Culture. In 2009, she started working as a professional journalist, mainly for the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. First, she worked at the politics desk, writing about migration, justice, education and politics in general. After that, she became a correspondent in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Since 2021, she is back in The Netherlands and works at the science desk of De Volkskrant, looking at society from a scientific point of view. Her stories have been granted several awards, among which the international AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. She likes most to work on international projects, and to tell the stories of people who are normally not getting a stage, like migrants or victims of climate change.