Behrouz Boochani Livres

Over six years of imprisonment in Australia's offshore migrant detention centre, the Kurdish-Iranian journalist and writer Behrouz Boochani bore personal witness to the suffering and degradation inflicted on him and his fellow refugees, culminating eventually in his prize-winning book – No Friend but the Mountains. In the articles, essays, and poems he wrote while detained, he emerged as both a tenacious campaigner and activist, as well as a deeply humane voice which reflects the indignity and plight of the many thousands of detained migrants across the world. In this book Boochani's collected writings are combined with essays from experts on migration, refugee rights, politics, and literature. Together, they provide a moving, creative and challenging account of not only one writer's harrowing experience and inspiring resilience, but the wider structures of violence which hold thousands of human beings in a state of misery in migrant camps throughout Western nation-states and beyond.

In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani sought asylum in Australia but was instead illegally imprisoned in the country's most notorious detention centre on Manus Island. This book is the result.Boochani spent nearly five years typing passages of this book one text at a time from a secret mobile phone in prison. Compiled and translated from Farsi, they form an incredible story of how escaping political persecution in Iran, he ended up trapped as a stateless person. This vivid, gripping portrait of his years of incarceration and exile shines devastating light on the fates of so many people, as borders close around the world.

Behrouz Boochani, author, filmmaker and journalist wrote his profound and powerful poetic political manifesto A Letter From Manus Island after four years incarceration as a stateless refugee on Manus in Australian-run camps. His letter, a humanitarian message, translated by Omid Tofighian, is published with a preface by Ruth Skilbeck.

»Die zornige Stimme der Internierten« – Süddeutsche Zeitung Der kurdisch-iranische Journalist Behrouz Boochani wurde Anfang 2013 auf der berüchtigten Abschiebeinsel Manus Island in einem von Australien betriebenen Auffanglager als staatenloser Flüchtling interniert. Bald wurde er als Sprecher der unter unfassbaren Zuständen festgehaltenen »Boatpeople« erneut zur Zielscheibe von Repression und Erniedrigung. Die bewegende Geschichte seiner Flucht und seiner über sechs Jahre andauernden Inhaftierung hat er über Monate hinweg als Kurznachrichtengewitter an seinen Übersetzer geschrieben. Satz für Satz. Auf einem Handy. »Woher bin ich gekommen? Aus dem Land der Flüsse, dem Land der Wasserfälle, dem Land der uralten Gesänge, dem Land der Berge [...]. Die Leute rannten in die Berge, um den Kriegsflugzeugen zu entkommen, und sie fanden Asyl in ihren Walnusswäldern [...]. Haben Kurden noch irgendwelche anderen Freunde, außer den Bergen?«