Reading Hayden’s book is like descending through the middle bolgias of the Inferno, except that Dante’s hell does not hide behind a gauzy screen of humanitarian concern…” — The Sunday Times

Reading this made me grateful for living in a country with a national health service, freedom and peace (relatively). Heartbreaking stories and so necessary to read. Felt even more of a pang when I read the stories that I have already heard first hand from people I work with and for on a daily basis.

This is a brilliant book, powerful and emotional – Sally Hayden is a superb journalist and through her incredible courage and eyewitness testimonies, paints a compelling picture of the poignant and horrific lives endured by so many refugees and migrants. A must read for anyone with a conscience”. — Miriam O’Callaghan, presenter RTE Prime Time My reading of this coincided with all of the recent news in the UK about the Tory government's renewed attempts to stop small boats of migrants crossing the Channel from Europe. The book was already on my radar following it winning the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2022, and after reading the impressive The Naked Don't Fear the Water: A Journey Through the Refugee Underground last year. A book to make me laugh?: They aren’t exactly comedy, but when I’ve travelled to various cities lately, like Accra, Lagos and Nairobi, I’ve read the associated book from the Akashic Noir series. They are collections of crime stories by writers set in their own country and some do contain wry humour. Small Things Like These takes the reader to an Irish town in the weeks leading up to the Christmas of 1985, and into the life of Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant confronted with an ethical dilemma that has lain dormant in the town for years. With great tenderness, skill and poise, Claire Keegan asks questions of huge moral and political importance: what should we do when we encounter what we know to be wrong? Where, and to whom, do we owe the greatest loyalty? And when does collective silence become complicity?

This vivid chronicle of the lives and dreams of those who risk all the cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe may make you cry, but it should make you angry. It is not just a blistering rebuke to those who torture, rape and imprison, but to the rest of us, who turn a blind eye.” — LindseyHilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 News Maar nu gaan dezelfde akkoorden met Tunesië, wat een buurland van Libië is, gesloten worden met waarschijnlijk exact dezelfde resultaten, dat kan je uit dit verhaal al afleiden. Hayden beschrijft hier de Afrikaanse migratie via Ethiopische en Libische smokkelroutes, de oversteek van de Middellandse Zee naar hoofdzakelijk Italië. Ook de verdragen die de EU met de Libische kustwacht afgesloten heeft en wat de gevolgen hiervan zijn komen ruim aan bod.

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Hayden, Sally (3 July 2019). "Opinion:They Hoped to Reach Europe Before They Were Massacred". The New York Times– via NYTimes.com. For refugees on the epic journey in search of safety – “the road of death” one Eritrean called it; the “Temple Run” they say in Sierra Leone, after the mobile phone game’s exhortation to “use amazing powers to cheat death” – phones are lifelines. Because of her award-winning investigative reporting on Syrian refugees, one of those hidden arteries found its way to Hayden in her sublet room in London. “Sister Sally,” a man WhatsApped her in 2018 from a Libyan detention centre for refugees, “we need your help.” Dr Christopher Kissane is a historian and writer, and host of the Ireland’s Edge podcast Christopher Kissane Good journalism of this sort should, at the very least, make the reader angry. Excellent journalism should not only make one angry, it should make the reader feel the pain and the fear intrinsic to the reportage. It should make the reader want to act, to yell, to raise their fist, to do anything but throw up one’s hands in despair. In My Fourth Time, We Drowned, Hayden does all that and more.” —Counterpunch Magazine Each year, our independent panels award prizes to the writing and reporting which best meets the spirit of George Orwell’s own ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. There are currently four Orwell Prizes, The Orwell Prize for Political Writing, The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, The Orwell Prize for Journalism, and The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils.

A brilliant, unparalleled investigation of one of the most underreported scandals and monstrous crimes of our time.” — Responsible Statecraft Intrepidly reported and vividly written, this sobering account shines a spotlight on an underreported tragedy.” — Publishers Weekly Kissane, Christopher. "My Fourth Time, We Drowned: A book of evidence". The Irish Times . Retrieved 22 April 2022. In the finest tradition of George Orwell’s journalism, George Monbiot draws on a vast reserve of knowledge to write with wit, elegance, forensic insight, and sustained and justified anger about the most important, and most neglected, crisis facing humanity. His targets range from organised crime to criminal political indifference and he leaves us in no doubt about what we must do to survive. a brilliant, unparalleled investigation of one of the most underreported scandals and monstrous crimes of our time.” —Responsible StatecraftBoth Sally Hayden and Claire Keegan have, in very different ways, written gripping stories about things that should alarm us: there are awful truths right at the heart of our societies and systems,” Jean Seaton, the director of the Orwell Foundation, said. “However, in their wit, elegance and compassion, these powerful winning books also help us think about the choices we make, and how to make the future better. Orwell would be proud.” Probably the most important and touching book I’ve read this year… It’s horrific and nobody comes out looking good, least of all us citizens of Europe, who have allowed terrible things to go on in our name.” — Five Books Ook schrijnend zijn de absurd hoge verwachtingen die sommige illegale migranten soms hebben... dan kan het alleen maar tegen vallen.