In this article, relations between agency and literacy are analysed focussing on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children's literacies. A dialogic perspective on agency is used, with agency defined as dynamic, and with attention paid to the parameters time, culture, semiotic resources, and physical space and position. The material used for the analysis are interviews with five young adults. Interviews revealed the conflicting positions of the young persons in focus here, as agents acting to position themselves while simultaneously being in a vulnerable position. The social uses of written language resources outside school in this case turned out to be especially important for interaction with peers, relatives and acquaintances. The analysis also showed the importance of support for the development of multilingual literacies, and it identified restrictions at the social level that may be the result of monolingual literacy for the individual.