Behrouz Boochani Photo: Hoda Afshar
“It is a cliche to say literature saves lives,” Behrouz Boochani has written, “but I experienced it with my whole being.”
Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish journalist, human rights defender, writer and film producer who came to international attention after his memoir, No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison won the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature and the prize for non-fiction in Australia. He wrote it on Whatsapp while held in an Australian-run detention centre in Papua New Guinea. As a cautionary tale it detailed riots, murders, suicides and rapes and the damage caused to 1000s mentally and physically. But it also offers hope because, in its poetry and prose, it is also very beautiful.
Boochani was held at Manus from 2013 until the centre’s closure in 2017 and remained in Papua New Guinea with the other detainees until late 2019.
Behrouz Boochani Photo: supplied
At that time a one-month visa was arranged to allow him to speak at a special event organised by Word Festival in Ōtautahi Christchurch.
He remained on an expired visa in Aotearoa New Zealand until being granted refugee status in July 2020.
Boochani has since lived in Pōneke Wellington, and in 2022 his book Freedom, Only Freedom, was published by Bloomsbury.
Boochani’s language of Kurdish is excluded from public life and the education system back in Iran. Keeping his culture alive there, he has written, “is treated as a security threat.”
Indeed it was after publishing a bilingual magazine Vorya in Kurdish and Persian that six of his friends were arrested and he fled as a refugee to Australia.
Boochani champions creativity as an enabler of people’s freedom and he’s an advocate for other refugees here and internationally. This week he has a trip to three cities in Australia - one of many he has taken as an advocate.
Behrouz Boochani Photo: supplied
Ironically, it’s a country former minister and leader of the opposition in Australia Peter Dutton once said Bochanni would never set foot in.
Boochani is currently working on a new film and his short stories, one of which features in the volume New Australian Fiction 2024.
He joins Mark Amery of RNZ’s Culture 101 to play 'Fast Favourites', where guests join us to share their love of other culture.
Top of his list is Kurdish poet Saead Banan (whose work we share), the publishing work in Pōneke of 5ever Press and Melbourne based Iranian photographer Hoda Afshar.
