Behrouz Boochani
Hessom Razavi reviews 'Freedom, Only Freedom: The prison writings of Behrouz Boochani', translated and edited by Omid Tofighian and Moones Mansoubi
In 2018, No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison became a literary sensation. It was written by Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian journalist and refugee who was incarcerated by the Australian government on Manus Island. Like thousands of others, Boochani had travelled by boat to seek asylum in Australia. From Manus, he texted passages to collaborators in Sydney. There, Omid Tofighian and Moones Mansoubi developed the work further. Through reportage, storytelling and poetry, it bore witness to the horrors of immigration detention. By 2019, No Friend had won some of Australia’s major literary awards and Boochani had become internationally renowned. In November 2019, he was invited to attend a festival in Christchurch, New Zealand. After six years in detention, he was free. The system that had imprisoned him remained intact.
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In June 2019, Australian Book Review announced the ABR Behrouz Boochani Fellowship, an initiative generously funded by Peter McMullin in association with the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness (University of Melbourne). This initiative was not only created to highlight issues pertaining to ...
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Awake
I am beholding clouds
beholding dreams
and
… beholding the hands of a woman
… she has taken a fragment of me with her
Exactly like the force of a fork
carving out a piece of cake
News from the Editor's Desk - January-February 2019
ABR News: Felicity Plunkett named the ABR Patrons' Fellow 2019; a new poem by Behrouz Boochani; the Peter Porter Poetry Prize shortlist announced; the Melbourne Writers' Festival moves; Calibres galore; the 2019 Stella Prize shortlist announced; the Melbourne University Publishing furore; and more ...
... (read more)Felicity Plunkett reviews 'No Friend But the Mountains' by Behrouz Boochani
Behrouz Boochani describes being smashed into the sea by the boulder-like weight of an overpacked, splintering boat transporting asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia. The wreck’s ‘slashed carcass’ gashes the flailing survivors and the bodies of those who have died, and Boochani settles under a wave ...
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Letters to the Editor: Tony Kevin from Gordon writes on Jeff Sparrow's Trigger Warnings; John Lowe from Ormond on D. H. Lawrence; and some comments on Behrouz Boochani and his poem 'Flight from Manus' ...
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Letters to the Editor: Arnold Zable et al. sign an open letter of support for the release of Behrouz Boochani; Roger Levi on Alecia Simmond's article on the horrors of Married At First Sight ...
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