Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 2025

We Came by Sea is an untold story of the small boats crisis, a story which shows the best of us. It is the story of the volunteers who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crews mounting one of the great search and rescue operations of all time, of an unrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain which is giving its all to help the vulnerable and desperate. It is a journey through an unexamined nation, a nation which is as truly great and good as the people in the dinghies believe Britain to be. It is not the story we have been told, and it is a true story.

Prizes

Short-listed for Nero Book Awards 2025

[Clare's] job, executed wonderfully well, is to help us to think calmly and intelligently about those arriving in small boats, to consider giving them a chance and to recognise that we have more in common with them than we might imagine.' Maggie Fergusson, The Spectator.

'It feels comforting and right to have a writer of Clare's skill turn his attention to this topic.' Sally Hayden, The Irish Times

'There is such humanity in the writing.' Sue Brooks, Caught by The River

'His prose is always brilliant, and by turns funny, furious and heart-piercingly compassionate.' Robert Macfarlane

Horatio Clare is a bestselling, award winning and highly acclaimed travel writer, memoirist and journalist. The author of more than fifteen books for adults (and three for children), he has written two previous books for Little Toller: Orison for a Curlew and Something of his Art.