French Quarter Magazine awarded Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek the publication’s pick for 2026 Best Author of the Year, holding a ceremony at the French Embassy in Washington.
The magazine’s founder and CEO, Isabelle Karamooz, described the setting as a nexus where conversations shape reality, and possibly the catalyst for the change that Jekielek’s new book, “Killed to Order,” demands.
The bestselling book presents two decades of evidence of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) forced organ harvesting industry, how it grew to become an estimated $9 billion industry, and how the West—including the United States—was drawn into complicity.
“Ideas travel, and when they do they become foundational,” Karamooz said at the April 20 event, urging attendees to continue to raise awareness about the issue in their own spheres of influence. French Quarter Magazine was founded to drive cultural exchange and meaningful dialogue, and the award was selected with impact over visibility in mind, she said.
“Jan explores allegations of forced organ harvesting in China—a subject as sensitive as it is significant, and one that invites us to reflect on human dignity, ethics, and global responsibility,” Karamooz said, “The role of journalist as its best is not only to inform but to illuminate, and sometimes to ask us to look more closely at what we might prefer not to see.”
Tim Touchette, board member of the French-American Culture Foundation, said the magazine’s choice this year was “brilliant,” shining a light on a topic many might have kept a wary distance from.
“Tonight’s presentation was so great because it was done in such a realistic and human way, where it’s like, ‘Hey, this is dark. It’s terrible. No one likes to talk about it, no one likes to look at it, but it needs to be addressed and spoken about.’ That resonated with me,” Touchette told The Epoch Times. “As humans, we can make an impact when we know about it, and we can take action.”
Enes Kanter Freedom, human rights activist and former NBA player, said the CCP’s forced organ harvesting was a topic he, like many, met with initial disbelief. It led him to do his own research and interviews, and, as the evidence piled up, to use his platform to speak out about it.
“As an athlete, when I talked about the organ harvesting—especially done by the CCP—in my locker room, my teammate had no idea, no idea, what was going on,” he told The Epoch Times. “People who have platforms need to use our platform to bring awareness about what’s going on ... I think it’s important for these kinds of books to educate society so we can have a better understanding of what’s going on.”
Many attendees—those who have fought totalitarian regimes for decades as well as those who only learned about forced organ harvesting through the event—said the book demands action.
“We are finally gaining some ground,” Greg Scarlatoiu, president of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told The Epoch Times. Gesturing to the packed hall, he added, “I think people are ready to talk about it.”
“Jan can take a lot of credit for this, for writing this book,” he said. “We’re gaining some ground.”
Attorney Joanne Young said the book can help shape how Americans approach China at this critical juncture.
“I think it is so timely and so important to have the message in this book get out. That’s because people, they kind of hear about the CCP, they know that there’s nefarious activities,” Young told The Epoch Times. “But this is so over the top. People think, ‘That can’t be true, no one could do that.’ Getting this message out could change the whole impression of China. The government—the U.S. government—needs to understand that this is going on and that it’s a real thing. Because I think their whole policy on China could be impacted. It’s not just business as usual.”
Legal analyst Ernest Francis said it was an atrocity warranting sanctions, and America must “shut it down.”
“It’s inhuman,” he said. “It really... it just touches your heart and cuts you, convicts you, because it’s terrible. We haven’t seen anything like this since 1945.”
Tom Rawlings, policy director for State Shield, said the evidence exposed in “Killed to Order” should compel America and other world leaders to stand against a regime that sells its people for parts.
“We’re dealing with a Chinese Communist Party that really has no value of the individual, individuals are there to be used, to be capitalized upon,” he said. “We have stood for the value that if you are an individual, you have equal dignity and equal worth with anyone else in the world, no matter your creed, your religion, your ethnicity. And we are seeing an economically powerful country that is saying, ‘We don’t care about that.’ But if we’re going to stand up for our values, this is where we’ve got to make a stand.”
“The actual harvesting of organs from individuals because they are part of the disfavored minority? It’s something that we don’t... if we don’t stand up and stop this, then we’re not worth our salt.”
Rawlings said he hoped it was a book decision-makers will read, because they may have heard of organ harvesting, but may not understand the scale of the industry the CCP has created and the overwhelming evidence until they see it laid out as in “Killed to Order.”
“I just hope that this is the start of a movement to fix a problem,” Rawlings said.
