He was a political prisoner incarcerated by the Australian government in Papua New Guinea for almost seven years. In November 2019 Behrouz escaped to New Zealand. He now resides in Christchurch. There is a famous Kurdish proverb that goes, “We have no friends but the mountains.” This phrase has always been symbolic of the repeated neglect and abandonment of Kurds by other communities in the midst of their oppression. The mountains have always been a place of refuge for Kurds — much unlike their neighbors — concealing them from the armies and fighters who work to ethnically cleanse Kurdish cities, towns, and villages. Boochani, Behrouz; Tofighian, Omid (2018). "The Last Days in Manus Prison" (Summer 2018). Meanjin Quarterly. Archived from the original on 9 March 2019 . Retrieved 23 February 2019. {{ cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= ( help) The French novelist and revolutionist Victor Serge explains in Men in Prison (1930) why the first encounter with prison uniform so consistently features in narratives of jail: Clearly, they are taking us hostage. We are hostages – we are being made examples to strike fear into others, to scare people so they won’t come to Australia.

A chant, a cry from the heart, a lament, fuelled by a fierce urgency, written with the lyricism of a poet, the literary skills of a novelist, and the profound insights of an astute observer of human behaviour and the ruthless politics of a cruel and unjust imprisonment.' ARNOLD ZABLE A victory for humanity': Behrouz Boochani's literary prize speech in full – video". The Guardian. 1 February 2019 . Retrieved 1 February 2019. On the one hand, the book offers a realistic account of the life of the people detained indefinitely without a crime in the Manus Prison, without essentializing or romanticizing the refugees. On the other hand, it is a skillfully conveyed account of the intimate lived experience, imagination, and philosophical reflections of a Kurdish political exile, deeply rooted in the Kurdish cosmological, literary, and political traditions. With both of these aspects beautifully intertwined, this is a work of incredible bravery and commitment to the political power of written word, aimed at revealing the injustice and horrors of Australia’s asylum regime to those with the privilege of citizenship. While its writing was a method of survival for an illegally imprisoned creative writer and intellectual, this book was written for us: its purpose is to help us open up our epistemological frames to the insights of the oppressed and to empower us to break the silence about this system of oppression. This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through six years of incarceration and exile.

No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison

We were gripped by Behrouz’s incredible book and have been in discussions with Ákos and Antony for some time,” Hoodlum’s Nathan Mayfield tells IF. What do other people’s plans to come to Australia have to do with me? Why do I have to be punished for what others might do?”

Boochani said writing had helped him survive, observing: “I could keep my identity and keep my humanity. This system is designed to take our identity, designed to reduce us to numbers.”Tofighian describes in an article in The Conversation the process and the challenges brought about by translating such a work. Starting in December 2016, Boochani's words were first sent to consultant translator Moones Mansoubi, each chapter being one long text message of 9,000 to 17,000 words. Mansoubi would format them into PDFs, and send them to Tofighian, who then translated from Persian to English, consulting regularly with Boochani via WhatsApp along the way. Tofighian had weekly sessions with either Mansoubi or another Iranian researcher in Sydney, during which time Boochani continued to write the book while consulting his friends and literary confidants both in Australia and Iran. [8] In his book, Boochani not only documents in detail the “soul-destroying” conditions to which the imprisoned refugees on Manus are subjected, but he also shares his observations and scholarly analyses in regards to (1) the effects of the conditions on the psychological states and interpersonal relationships among the refugees, and (2) the overarching, intersecting structures of power and domination, which are played out and reproduced in the Manus Prison. Music Review: No Friend But The Mountains: a Symphonic Song Cycle". ArtsHub Australia. 26 March 2021 . Retrieved 10 July 2022. Boochani posits that the prison is a Kyriarchal system (a term borrowed from feminist theory), one where different forms of oppression intersect; oppression is not random but purposeful, designed to isolate and create friction amongst prisoners, leading to despair and broken spirits. [6] A poetic, yet harrowing read, and every Australian household should have a copy.' MAXINE BENEBA CLARKE

One hesitates to invoke Auschwitz in a discussion of Australia’s asylum seeker detention regime, a system that, for all its horrors, does not implement genocide. But Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend But the Mountains – a book about, among other things, the power of writing – invites the comparison, as a text self-consciously positioned within a broader literature of incarceration. Publication of Behrouz Bouchani's book in Iran". BBC Persian Service. 2020-04-23 . Retrieved 2020-12-09.This book answers that question. Boochani is a man of delicate sensibility and fine, sometimes severe, moral judgment but also, in his willingness to lay bare his soul before us, of mighty courage. In his book Boochani introduces us to different dimensions of his experience and thinking. Both a profound creative writing project and a strategic act of resistance, the book is part of a coherent theoretical project and critical approach. After five years of publishing articles with media organisations in Australia and internationally, co-directing the film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (2017) and presenting many influential speeches to various audiences, Boochani is adamant that people still do not understand the extent of the situation and the underlying logic of what he calls Manus prison. Hage, Ghassan. 2009. “Introduction.” In Waiting, edited by Ghassan Hage, 1-14. Carlton South: Melbourne University Press. No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison is published by Picador Australia and released on 31 July. It will be launched at UNSW on 2 August, presented by Live Crossings, UNSWriting, Pan Macmillan Australia and Picador.