Behrouz Boochani holds a Masters degree in political geography and
geopolitics. He is a Kurdish-Iranian journalist, scholar, cultural
advocate, writer and filmmaker, founder of the Kurdish-language
magazine Weya, and an Honorary Member of PEN International.
In 2013, he fled Iran and became a political prisoner of the
Australian Government incarcerated in the Manus Regional Processing
Centre (Papua New Guinea).
Translator Dr Omid Tofighian is a lecturer, researcher and
community advocate based at the American University of Cairo and
University of Sydney. His work combines philosophy with interests
in rhetoric, religion, popular culture, transnationalism,
displacement and discrimination. He contributes to community arts
and cultural projects and works with asylum seekers, refugees and
young people from Western Sydney. He has published numerous book
chapters and journal articles and is the author of Myth and
Philosophy in Platonic Dialogues (Palgrave, 2016). He has
translated a number of articles for Behrouz Boochani for the
Guardian.
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, author of the award-winning
Jewels and Ashes and Cafe Scheherazade
The systems of containment and control that the rich world applies
to many thousands of migrants and refugees work by reducing people
to a faceless presence to either be feared or pitied, but never
listened to. In the face of this oppression, Behrouz Boochani's
lyrical yet unsparing account is a vital act of resistance, and a
unique examination of people pushed to life's extremes. -- Daniel
Trilling, author of Lights in the Distance
Not for the faint-hearted, it's a powerful, devastating insight
into a situation that's so often seen through a political - not
personal - lens. * GQ *
This is a brilliant book. No Friend but the Mountains is a
book that can rightly take its place on the shelf of world prison
literature, alongside such diverse works as Oscar Wilde's De
Profundis, Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, Ray
Parkin's Into The Smother, Wole Soyinka's The Man
Died, and Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from Birmingham
Jail . . . It is a profound victory for a young poet who showed
us all how much words can still matter. -- Richard Flanagan, Booker
Prize winning author of The Narrow Road to the Deep
North
Boochani has created a book that resists classification. It
overlaps with genres such as prison literature, philosophical
fiction, clandestine philosophical literature, prison narratives,
Australian dissident writing, Iranian political art, transnational
literature, decolonial writing and the Kurdish literary tradition.
* Guardian *
A terrific book, extraordinary not only because of the
near-impossible conditions in which it was written, but because
it's gripping, raw, honest, brutal and also deeply humane, poetic,
spirited and even at times humorous. It's a searing indictment of
indefinite detention (something that still exists in the UK) and a
reminder of what happens when we stop seeing migrants as human
beings. -- Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
