Transcript
Called No Friend but the Mountains the book was drafted in Farsi and translated into English by Omid Tafighian, an assistant professor of philosophy at the American University in Cairo.
Dr Tafighian says the book's genre cannot be defined.
"It's art as resistance... The book is infused with folklore, with myth, with epic. Yes, there are bits and pieces of memoir scattered throughout but it's also fictional, it's also historical, it's also philosophical, it's also psychoanalytic. So I think if there was any book that couldn't be cateforised this would be a good example of that."
Author Behrouz Boochani says his book defies classification as well as Australia's system of offshore detention.
"The whole book is against a system that is created to take people's identity. And this book is like a struggle and it is a victory, actually it is a victory for me and all the people living in a situation like this."
Dr Tafighian says Mr Boochani doubts his book will change Australian politics.
"But what he wants to do is document this particular phase in Australia's history and these atrocities related to border politics. He also wants other generations to learn from this and challenge and subvert a whole perverse philosophy that can't be defined in terms of periods and borders... His book is trying to expose that colonial logic that he believes is underlying the prison."
But Mr Boochani says his book is not a manifesto.
"I ask the readers, don't reduce this book in only a political frame. Try to understand this book as a piece of art because first I am a novelist, first I am an artist."
Dr Tafighian says the book is part of the legacy of Kurdish resistance and prison writing, but unique in being painstakingly typed on a mobile phone.
"It's probably the first book that's been written on WhatsApp and so the mode of production I think is something unique and worthy of a lot more reflection."
But Mr Boochani says much like his film, Chauka, Please tell us the Time, the fascination with the mode of production undermines his message.
"The media always talk about this, 'look how it's incredible that someone write a book in WhatsApp and someone write a book in a harsh prison.' I know it is very interesting but it is only a small part of this story."
No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison was published by Picador Australia and launched yesterday in Sydney.
