TIME’S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE
YEAR • A riveting” (The Atlantic) account of the Philippines’ state-sanctioned killings of its
citizens under President Rodrigo Duterte hailed as a journalistic masterpiece” (The New
Yorker) Tragic elegant vital . . . Evangelista risked her life to tell this story.”—Tara
Westover #1 New York Times bestselling author of Educated WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC
LIBRARY’S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE
WOMEN’S PRIZE • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times The New Yorker The Economist
Chicago Public Library CrimeReads The Mary Sue My job is to go to places where people die. I
pack my bags talk to the survivors write my stories then go home to wait for the next
catastrophe. I don’t wait very long.”Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the
aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades
later in the face of mounting inequality the nation discovered the fragility of its
democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.Some People Need Killing
is Evangelista’s meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines’ drug war.
For six years Evangelista documented the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the
name of Duterte’s war on drugs—a crusade that has led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing
herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of terror created
when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others.The book takes its
title from a vigilante whose words demonstrated the psychological accommodation many across
the country had made: I’m really not a bad guy ” he said. I’m not all bad. Some people need
killing.”A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism Some People Need
Killing is a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an investigation into the
human impulses to dominate and resist.
