No Friend but the Mountains

Writing from Manus Prison

By: Behrouz Boochani, Omid Tofighian - translator

Narrated by: Geoffrey Robertson, Isobelle Carmody, Mathilda Imlah, Omid Tofighian, Richard Flanagan, Sarah Dale, Thomas Keneally, Yumi Stynes, Janet Galbraith, Benjamin Law

Length: 13 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Winner of the ABIA audiobook of the year 2020

In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island. 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 firsthand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through five years of incarceration and exile.

At the time of recording, Behrouz was still being held on Manus Island. Normally the author is given the opportunity to read his own words but because he was not able to participate, a chorus of advocates have come together to speak not so much for Behrouz but with him.

Narrated by Richard Flanagan, Mathilda Imlah, Geoffrey Robertson, Janet Galbraith, Thomas Keneally, Sarah Dale, Yumi Stynes, Isobelle Carmody, Benjamin Law and Omid Tofighian.

Where have I come from? From the land of rivers, the land of waterfalls, the land of ancient chants, the land of mountains.... 

People would run to the mountains to escape the warplanes and found asylum within their chestnut forests.... 

Do Kurds have any friends other than the mountains?  

Winner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Prize for Literature and the Prize for Non-Fiction 2019.

Winner of the NSW Premier's Award 2019.

Winner of the Abia General Fiction Book of the Year 2019.

Winner of the National Biography Award 2019.

Inaugural Winner of the Behrouz Boochani Award for Services to Anthropology.

Finalist for the Terzani Prize 2020.

Longlisted for the Colin Roderick Literary Award 2019.

©2019 Behrouz Boochani (P)2019 Macmillan Australia Audio

Critic reviews

"Our government jailed his body, but his soul remained that of a free man." (Richard Flanagan)

"The most important Australian book published in 2018." (Robert Manne)

"A powerful account...made me feel ashamed and outraged. Behrouz's writing is lyrical and poetic, though the horrors he describes are unspeakable." (Sofie Laguna)

Narrators

I think this is an amazing book. sad but incredibly eloquent. unfortunately the narrator's killed it for me.

Must read for all Australians

Impressive documentation by Behrouz Boochani of the abusive regime established by the Australian right-wing government to discourage asylum seekers from trying to get to Australia by boat. Boochani smuggled via telephone messages and social media fragments of text documenting the micro-abuses that structured every hour of every day in Australia’s asylum detention system. The cruelty and indignities are carefully described along with commentary about the political purpose behind this inhumane system.

Boochani and Omid Tofighian, the translator, collaborated closely in representing and interpreting this work. Parts of it are extraordinarily powerful, including prose-poems by Boochani.

The audiobook is read by a range of well known human rights activists and journalists and includes an extensive discussion by the translator of how he and Boochani approached the work.

An important book that shames Australia’s policies toward asylum seekers. Most Australians do not approve of this cruel securitised approach to an humanitarian issue.

Australia can do so much better but the community will need to be far more active in demanding change to the abusive system still in place.