UPDATE FOR OUR PLEDGERS! The Indiegogo campaign has now ended, BUT you can still pledge and pre-order a copy of Tom's book via our website. For those of you who have already given THANK YOU SO MUCH we still get to keep what we have raised on Indiegogo, and in the next few months will continue to search for the final funding - our new target is to make $20,000 and print 1000 copies of the book. In the meantime, all of your money will be saved in the books dedicated bank account until we go on press in the summer.
Please encourage people who might like to support Tom's book to visit our website, as every pledge still counts!

What do I want from this life? What makes you happy is not enough. All the things that satisfy our instincts only satisfy the animal in us. I want to be proud of myself. I want more. I want to look up to myself and when I die, I want to smile because of the things I have done, not cry for the things I havent done.
Tom Hurndall

A brave man who stood alone. If only the world had listened to him... I wish I had met him because looking back over the history of that terrible war Hurndalls journals (soon to be published) show a remarkable man of remarkable principle.
Robert Fisk

TOM HURNDALL'S STORY

Tom Hurndall, a young British photojournalist and peace worker, was shot in the head in Gaza in April 2003 whilst carrying a small group of stranded Palestinian children to safety. He died nine months later in a London hospital. This book follows his journals and begins on 15th February 2003 in London, where the huge demonstration by millions in the run up to the Iraq war had given 21-year-old Tom an increased curiosity and desire to journey to the Middle East. Soon afterwards, initially as an observer alongside the Human Shields, he left with a passion to make a difference, to record and photograph the truth for himself.

 

We follow his journey first from Baghdad, then to Amman and the Al-Rweished refugee camp in Jordan, to Jerusalem, and finally on to the town of Rafah in southern Gaza close to the Egyptian border, where US peaceworker Rachel Corrie had been killed just weeks previously. On April 11th, unarmed and wearing an internationally recognizable orange peacekeeper jacket, he was severely wounded, never to regain consciousness.

 

The book we are publishing follows Toms life and thoughts in the final weeks leading up to the shooting, through his photographs and extracts from his diary, emails and poems. It is realised through collaboration with the Hurndall family, and the Publication Date of the book will be April 2011, to coincide with the eighth anniversary of the shooting.  Toms story has touched many, and the important publication of his journals also follows the BAFTA-nominated 2008 Channel 4 film-documentary The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall. His work has also been published in the international press including the Guardian, The Independent and the Times.

 

The esteemed writer on the Middle East Robert Fisk has already written the preface to the book, which was published in The Independent newspaper in 2009. Read HERE

WHAT WE NEED...

We are looking for $34,000 (21,660, 25,500) to cover the cost of printing 3,000 copies of the book The Middle East Journals of Tom Hurndall, which we will then distribute internationally. As a small independent publisher of photography and photojournalism titles, Trolley Books often struggle to fund production due to the high cost of printing, and because many of the books are not commercially viable enough to support themselves. Trolley has decided for the first time to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, as we really believe that Tom's book will appeal to all those interested in not just Tom's personal and tragic story, but in photography, photojournalism, politics & poetry, and hopefully some of you who know our books and want to support the work of Trolley too.

...& WHAT YOU GET IN RETURN

We are extremely thankful to everyone who pledges towards making this book happen, and to show our appreciation we would like to offer some fantastic rewards!

We are hoping that many of you will pledge at least $35 (22.50, 26) as this is effectively pre-ordering a copy of the book, and you will be the very first to receive a copy of the book when it is printed.  We are also offering pdf copies of the book, printed credits in the book itself, the Limited Edition of 1-50 with a print, a selection of classic books from Trolley's catalogue, exclusive invitations to the book launch and other special events relating to the book, as well as unique opportunities to join us during production, from the design process and learning about how books are put together with us in London, to going on press to see the book printed at our printers near Venice, Italy.

We hope as many people as possible will find want to become part of making Toms journals a reality.

WHAT WE HAVE DONE SO FAR

On Friday 26th November 2010, the day before what would have been Toms 29th birthday, we organised a panel talk at the Arab British Chamber of Commerce in London, to discuss Tom's work and the importance of publishing his book.

The panel included:

Jocelyn Hurndall Toms mother
John Sweeney (chair) - BBC Panorama journalist of 2003 documentary When Killing is Easy and The Independent article Silenced Witnesses
Anthony Hurndall Toms father
Mohammed Qeshta - who was with Tom when we was shot and worked for the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza
Rowan Joffe and Simon Block - Director and Screenwriter of Channel 4 BAFTA-nominated film documentary The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall

Gigi Giannuzzi - publisher and founder of Trolley Books

Below are some extracts from the talk, you can watch the unedited version of the talk on our blog here, 

 

Tom had this eye, this way of looking at things, this way of understanding things and he set out to observe, to look at something - but to understand it in a truthful way....Tom was an unusual person and he was a risk taker and I think we learn so much from risk takers.

Ive learnt so much through looking through Toms eyes, and I hope other people who arent so familiar with the situation in the Middle East will try to look through Toms eyes.

Jocelyn Hurndall

 

Tom started on this journey to be a photojournalist, and he was really excited about it. Photography and journalism, going out there and recording and bringing back the story was something that he thought was going to be his future.....The way he reacted was not just as a photojournalist but as a human being. The very fact that his last moment of consciousness was as a human being responding to the needs of a child in desperate danger is so telling, and so much at the heart of Tom and at the heart of this book.

Anthony Hurndall

As filmmakers, whats uniquely inspiring to me about books of this ilk is that they are real people, in real moments, and significant moments, moments of suffering, or moments of injustice, moments that are crying out to be recorded.....Some of the greatest photographers in the world have been war photographers and photojournalists and I think Tom probably set out in some way to follow in those footsteps and its something which is honoured in the book. And I think that whats unique about this is youre not just buying a book youre kind of investing in the continuation of photoreportage, and I think thats a fantastically important thing to do.

Rowan Joffe

 

This is an almost rare pearl in terms of how integrated the photography is with the work done with text. We met with the parents of Tom 3 or 4 years ago, and weve been working on this for a long time. Unfortunately effectively what happens is that as you can imagine these are not best-sellers, and they are the most difficult niche of books to produce and make it happen in terms of cost; printing in four colours its not just a book of text in one colour. But when I came across this material and Toms story I felt really obliged to get in touch and do my best.

Gigi Giannuzzi

THE BOOK:

ISBN: 978-1-904563-51-8
Photography / Current Affairs
Hardback, 196 pp
190 x 260 mm, 7.48 x 10.24 in.
100 colour and b/w
Design: Fruitmachine
24.99 / $40 / 29.95
Publication Date April 2011

Here is a dummy of the book so far (designed by our designers Martin and Wai at Fruitmachine). Nothing is final, it's just to give you an idea...
 

WHO ARE TROLLEY BOOKS?

Trolley Books have worked with some of the most respected photojournalists in the world, often focusing on underexposed issues and abuses of power around the world, from conflicts to unique stories in photojournalism. Most notably Trolley has published books by Philip Jones Griffiths, famous for his work in Viet Nam and on Agent Orange in particular, and other Magnum photographers Alex Majoli, Paolo Pellegrin, Thomas Dworzak, Carl de Keyzer, as well as Stanley Greene, Tom Stoddart, and Nina Berman and others. In 2005 Trolley Books received a special commendation from the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards for its outstanding contribution to photography book publishing. This year Alixandra Fazzina, the author of Trolley's most recent publication 'A Million Shillings - Escape from Somalia', was awarded the UNHCR Nansen Award, the highest accolade they award for work with refugees and the first time it has ever been given to a journalist or photographer.

 

FINANCES

The campaign will receive pledges in US dollars but Indiegogo is a completely international platform so that people from anywhere around the world can campaign and pledge, you do not need to have a US bank account. All pledges will then be converted into British Pounds in our Paypal account. Trolley has set up a dedicated UK bank account specifically for this campaign, which will receive all the pledges made on this page securely via Paypal, so you know that every single penny and dollar will be put towards making this book happen.

 

Thank for your support so far, with your help we can completely raise the $34,000 needed to cover the cost of printing 3000 copies of the book. If we dont reach this target then the book will not be able to go into these next stages of production, so please pledge all you can, but if we do not reach our target we will aim to print less copies and keep looking for funds to print the book. For example

2000 copies can be printed with $27,840
1000 copies can be printed with $22,170

However the less copies that are made the more expensive per book it becomes, as well as significantly reducing the number of copies that can enter worldwide distribution. 3000 copies is our target! Should we raise more than this, as well as any small profit made from the book sales once it is in the shops, we will donate the money to the Trolley Charitable Trust, our charity which supports long-term photojournalistic projects and helps the development of photographers such as Tom.

 

We have some fantastic pledges for everyone, so please watch out for more updates for the campaign, and please start pledging and see the rewards involved in becoming part of this important book.

Many thanks!

Gigi Giannuzzi, Publisher and Founder

& Hannah Watson, Managing Editor

and everyone at Trolley Books

WWW.TROLLEYBOOKS.COM

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK

TROLLEY BOOKS

THE MIDDLE EAST JOURNALS OF TOM HURNDALL

AND TWITTER

 

Testimonials from the International Press for Trolley Books:

 

Trolley consistently marry profound content to elevated, respectful design, producing photography books that are elegant, educational, and most of all, important.

PhotoEye magazine

 

 Trolleys output is impressive[they] have us look at things wed normally avert our gaze from.

James Collard, The Times magazine

 

Trolleys instinctive, enthusiastic approach to publishing should be applauded

Design Week