AustLit

'The World Is Not Big Enough is the story of one woman’s journey to understand the human cost of a broken system. At once an investigation into the murder of a refugee and an exploration of Australians' collective guilt, The World Is Not Big Enough explores the ways we are all hurt by migration policies.

'In 2013, on a whim Vanessa Russell googled Ahmad Shah Abed, an Afghani asylum seeker she had exchanged letters with a decade earlier, to find he had been tragically murdered in 2009. The news came as a shock. Ahmad had been living in detention in Port Hedland when Vanessa had first started writing to him as a student hoping to do some good. Their relationship had been brief but impactful. After all these years, Vanessa couldn’t shake the feeling that she had failed him. With the news of Ahmad Shah’s murder, Vanessa realised she needed to find answers.

'Determined to unravel what happened and why, Vanessa travels to Port Hedland, Christmas Island and Perth, and interviews Ahmad Shah’s friends, fellow refugees, refugee advocates, support workers, people who worked in detention centres, and spends a year talking with the murderer himself. What she uncovers is the less-told story of how not only refugees but Australians themselves are being damaged by asylum seeker and refugee policies.' (Publication summary)