No Friend But The Mountains

Review

PRAISE FOR BEHROUZ BOOCHANI AND NO FRIEND BUT THE MOUNTAINS

Winner, Victorian Prize for Literature
Winner, Victorian Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction

“Behrouz Boochani has produced a stunning work of art and critical theory which evades simple description. At its heart, though, it is a detailed critical study and description of what Boochani terms ‘Manus Prison Theory.’ Traced through an analysis of the ‘kyriarchy’ ― a concept borrowed and elaborated on ― Boochani provides a new understanding both of Australia’s actions and of Australia itself.
Distinctive narrative formations are used, from critical analysis to thick description to poetry to dystopian surrealism. The writing is beautiful and precise, blending literary traditions emanating from across the world, but particularly from within Kurdish practices. The clarity with which ideas and knowledge are expressed is also a triumph of literary translation, carried out by translator Omid Tofighian.

Alongside critical thinking and new knowledge production, Boochani describes the people he has met on Manus with a remarkable depth. His choice of naming ― of people such as The Blue-Eyed Boy, The Prime Minister, Maysam The Whore, The Cow, and places like The Flowers Resembling Chamomile ― ensures that this book offers unique and compelling modes of character-writing. Presented too is a remarkably vivid account of the outrage of experiencing total control: the perpetual queues, the absence of adequate food, the limits on telecommunications, the failing generator, the disastrous toilets.
Altogether, this is a demanding work of significant achievement. No Friend but the Mountains is a literary triumph, devastating and transcendent.” ― Judges’ Citation, Victorian Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction.

About BEHROUZ BOOCHANI

BEHROUZ BOOCHANI is a Kurdish-Iranian writer, journalist, scholar, cultural advocate, and filmmaker. His memoir, No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Literature, Australia’s richest literary prize, and the Victoria Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction.

Boochani was a writer for the Kurdish-language magazine Werya; is an Honorary Member of PEN International; was the winner of an Amnesty International Australia 2017 Media Award, the Diaspora Symposium Social Justice Award, the Liberty Victoria 2018 Empty Chair Award, and the Anna Politkovskaya Award for journalism; and he is non-resident Visiting Scholar at the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre (SAPMiC), University of Sydney. He publishes regularly with the Guardian, and his writing also features in the Saturday Paper, HuffPost, New Matilda, the Financial Times, and the Sydney Morning Herald. Boochani is also co-director (with Arash Kamali Sarvestani) of the 2017 feature-length film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time, and collaborator on Nazanin Sahamizadeh’s play Manus. He graduated from Tarbiat Moallem University and Tarbiat Modares University, both in Tehran; and he holds a Master’s degree in political science, political geography, and geopolitics.

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