Nicola Kelly
Anywhere But Here

Saturday 20 June, 2.00pm
Chelmsford Cathedral, New Street, Chelmsford, CM1 1TY

From an award-winning journalist comes the hugely timely story of Britain’s broken asylum system and the search for belonging in Britain today. With unique and unparalleled access, award-winning journalist and former Home Office insider Nicola Kelly takes us behind the scenes what happens when you arrive here in the UK, from boat to shore to holding room and beyond.

Tickets: £15 / £12 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the day.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
☕ Refreshments will be available to buy at this event – cash and card payments taken
🚗 Chelmsford Cathedral is a 5 minute walk from the train station and bus station. The Cathedral does not have its own car park but there are a number of public car parks within a short walking distance: https://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/parking-and-travel/car-parks/.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.

Nicola Kelly

Photo of Nicola Kelly © Alice Zoo

Nicola Kelly is an award-winning investigative journalist and writer focused on UK immigration and asylum. Her reporting regularly appears in the Guardian, Observer, Independent, OpenDemocracy and elsewhere. Before moving into journalism, she worked as a diplomat for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with postings in Brussels and Istanbul. Later, she moved to the Home Office, working in their press office, before leaving the civil service during the rollout of the hostile environment policy. Her reporting has been referenced in several legal challenges against Conservative Home Secretaries, as well as submissions and human rights reports.

Bluesky: @nicolakellywrites.bsky.social

X: @NicolaKelly

Anywhere But Here: Stories of the Search for Belonging in Modern Britain

From an award-winning journalist comes the hugely timely story of Britain’s broken asylum system and the search for belonging in Britain today.

Longlisted for the 2025 Moore Prize for Human Rights

What is it like to arrive on our shores with nothing and to be pushed to the margins?

‘Brilliant and hugely timely.’
– Caroline Lucas, author of Another England

‘Will ignite both your compassion and your rage.’

– Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism

Each year tens of thousands of people risk their lives to cross the Channel in small boats hoping to find safety in Britain. Yet the very system designed to protect them has all but collapsed.

With unique and unparalleled access, award-winning journalist and former Home Office insider Nicola Kelly takes us behind the scenes what happens when you arrive here in the UK, from boat to shore to holding room and beyond.

Here we meet the under-resourced coastguard overseeing search and rescue operations. The decision-makers hired from fast food outlets to conduct ‘life and death’ asylum interviews. The immigration barristers securing last-minute reprieves for deportees. The people rioting outside asylum hotels because ‘nobody is listening’. And we step inside the Home Office corridors as ministers and advisors respond to emerging crises and scandals, from Windrush and Rwanda to the ‘one in; one out’ policy.

Situated on the beaches and the ports, in the hotels, the courtrooms and the detention centres where futures unfold, these are the extraordinary stories of struggle, survival and hope that come in the search for belonging in Britain today.

‘Puts the stories of displaced people front and centre.’

– The Herald

Praise for Anywhere But Here

‘A tour de force of reporting, a harrowing tale of human experience and a devastating indictment of serial failures by Britain’s political class. With her roadmap for reform, Nicola Kelly’s book should be required reading for every incoming Home Secretary.’

– Ben Rawlence, author of City of Thorns

‘Sharing the powerful human stories behind the statistics, Kelly shines an unflinching spotlight on the scale of injustice and incompetence at the heart of Britain’s broken asylum system … Beautifully written, bold and brave, Anywhere But Here … should be on every desk not just in the Home Office, but throughout government.’

– Caroline Lucas, author of Another England

‘A stunning expose of the UK’s broken asylum system … This book will ignite both your compassion and your rage.’

– Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism

‘An urgent and searing expose of the British immigration system and its failings, Anywhere But Here draws from a range of eyewitness accounts from refugees, politicians, coastguards, and more to reveal the full extent of the injustices and tragedies of the small boat crisis.’

– Waterstones

‘Kelly’s book, Anywhere But Here, brings such a human and humane perspective to an issue that is politicised and toxic.’

– The Guardian

‘Kelly remains poised, articulate and informed by exhaustive knowledge. Above all, to read Anywhere But Here is to follow her in the search for justice.’

– New Statesman

‘A deeply reported, richly textured expose… This isn’t just a story about how Britain’s asylum system fails those it is supposed to protect, it’s a vital account of how a broken system fails all of us.’

– Peter Geoghegan, author of Democracy for Sale

‘Reporting the subject of asylum, and telling the stories of those who try to claim it, is essential work, but in Kelly’s hands it is also elegant, gripping and lucid … This is a remarkably human book.’

– Sophie Elmhirst, author of Maurice and Maralyn (winner of the Costa Book Award)