The Accidental Immigrants | The Happiness Factory | Motherland | News | About
I'm very happy to announce that The Accidental Immigrants is a finalist for the 2025 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
“This cleverly conceived, inventively written political fable proves propulsively readable. Dedicated to ‘all the people who lose their lives trying to reach a safer shore,’ The Accidental Immigrants centres on a British couple living on an island in the Mediterranean that, as the Far Right rises, find themselves first disconcerted but then displaced and torn apart by increasingly totalitarian state policies and policing. McMillan’s characters might inhabit a Looking-Glass universe, but in reading this incisive critique of anti-immigration politics we stare straight back at ourselves. This humane, sensitive novel is insidiously shocking; and it looks set to become even more politically relevant given recent electoral results in the UK, Europe and the US.”
Orwell Prize for Political Fiction panel
What happens when you suddenly find yourself an unwanted foreigner?
“The Accidental Immigrants is a triumph: ferociously political and yet deeply personal, it is a soaring feat of the imagination, tethered firmly to the here and now.”
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
The Accidental Immigrants is about the hostile environment spreading across Europe and what it’s like to be caught up in it.
This is political fiction based on the facts of the years since Brexit, and an outsider’s insider take on what’s happened to the UK: the fallout from the referendum, the rise of the far right, and the increasing xenophobia towards people on the move.
Set on an island that’s a mirror image of Britain, it’s both allegory and warning. It asks: what happens when you suddenly find yourself an unwanted foreigner? And just how hard is it to get into the UK?
Talking about The Accidental Immigrants
© Jo McMillan 2025