Finding Home

Award-winning reporter Emily Dugan's Finding Home follows the tumultuous lives of a group of immigrants, all facing intense challenges in their quest to live in the UK.Syrian refugee Emad set up the Free Syrian League and worked illegally in the UK to pay for his mother to be smuggled across the Mediterranean on a perilous trip from Turkey. Even if she survives the journey, Emad knows it will be an uphill struggle to get her into Britain.Australian therapist Harley risks deportation despite serving the NHS for ten years and being told by the Home Office she could stay. Teaching assistant Klaudia is one of thousands of Polish people now living in Boston, Lincolnshire - a microcosm of poorly managed migration. Aderonke, a leading Manchester LGBT activist, lives in a tiny B&B room in Salford with her girlfriend, Happiness, and faces deportation and persecution.Dugan's timely and acutely observed book reveals the intense personal dramas of ordinary men and women as they struggle to find somewhere to call home. It shows that migration is not about numbers, votes or opinions: it is about people.

A timely and acutely observed book... it shows that migration is not about numbers, votes or opinions: it is about people., The whole story [is] told in such a fluent and well observed way., I implore you to read this book. Its honest and powerful recollections will force you to look beyond the figures, and at the individuals that make up the numbers., An often heart-breaking read that stresses the mess of people's lives, and their desperation and strength, too., Excellently observed, well-judged and highly readable, making it well worth a look.

Emily Dugan is Social Affairs Editor at the Independent, i and the Independent on Sunday. Her investigations into human trafficking have twice been awarded Best Investigative Article at the Anti-Slavery Day Media Awards and her human rights journalism was shortlisted for the Gaby Rado Memorial prize at the 2012 Amnesty Media Awards. This is her first book.