I Didn’t Mean to Write a Book About Immigration: A Global Immigration Perspective.

When Ladun Alabi first set out to write, she wasn’t planning to wade into one of the most polarising debates of our time. There was no intention to write a political book. No agenda.

And though the story unfolds in the United Kingdom, Two Britains speaks to something far larger, reflecting a global perspective of immigration. From the US to South Africa, from Canada to Nigeria, the same tensions ripple through our conversations, communities, and headlines: Who gets to come in? Who gets to stay? What does it mean to belong? This is not just a book about immigration in the UK, it’s about the hard, human questions so many of us are facing around the world.

What Alabi did intend was to explore nuance, the uncomfortable grey area between belonging and boundaries, between compassion and caution. And somehow, that exploration led her to Two Britains.

Told through the lens of Amara, an immigrant, naturalised, British-Nigerian woman with layered and sometimes conflicting views on immigration, this debut work doesn't follow the expected script. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t preach. Instead, it invites. It asks questions. It holds tension. And in doing so, it becomes one of the most quietly bold books we’ve read this year.

What makes Two Britains especially powerful is that it doesn’t try to convince anyone of anything. It doesn’t pick a side. It doesn’t tell you what to think. Instead, it creates space for grief, for fear, for pride, for confusion. For uncomfortable truths to coexist.

Alabi didn’t mean to write a book about immigration. But in trying to tell the truth about how we live together and how we don’t, she ended up writing one of the most timely and necessary books on the subject.

Two Britains is not a manifesto. It’s a mirror. Depending on who's holding it, it will reflect something different. It gives voice to conversations already happening in WhatsApp groups, barber shops, kitchen tables, and online comment sections, but does so with clarity, heart, and a rare kind of honesty.

This book doesn't offer solutions wrapped in certainty. Instead, it offers something rarer: curiosity. It challenges both the pro-immigration and anti-immigration crowd to hold their views up to the light, to examine whether they’ve clung to a narrative that’s easier to live with than the uncomfortable alternative. It invites us to see the bigger picture, one where two seemingly opposite truths can be held at the same time.

Because this isn’t just about immigration. It’s also about memory. About fear. About pride. It’s about what happens when a country, or a person, no longer recognises itself. It’s about unlearning, relearning, and sitting in the discomfort of not knowing.

Alabi’s debut is the first in the Hard Conversation Series, and it lives up to its name. It asks better questions, even the hard ones. It refuses to let readers hide in ideological corners, and instead opens a middle ground, a space where real dialogue can happen.

If you’ve ever wrestled with identity, cultural friction, or what it means to live in a world full of movement and memory, this is a book worth your time.

Two Britains by Ladun Alabi is out now on Amazon Kindle and in Paperback.

A new kind of book. A new kind of conversation.

You can find Ladun Alabi on Substack, Instagram and Tiktok by searching @LadunAlabi

#TwoBritains #HardConversations #ImmigrationDebate #BooksWithImpact #GlobalIssues #DebutAuthor #CulturalCritique #BritishIdentity #ImmigrantVoices