AustLit

'This article makes a case for reframing refugee literature through reading Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains, translated from Farsi by Omid Tofighian. Written in detention on Manus Island via text messages on WhatsApp, Boochani’s book has won wide acclaim in Australia and internationally, not only among literary critics, but as a work of popular appeal in writers’ festivals and cultural prizes. The popular narrative around No Friend but the Mountains has introduced it, on the one hand, as a representative specimen of refugee literature, and more specifically as an example of life writing of a stateless Kurd. We argue that Boochani’s work resists reductive characterisations of refugee literature both through its literary investments and its multiple affiliations with political and discursive interests. By attending closely to stylistic properties and its discursive contexts, we emphasise that No Friend but the Mountains is not just a protest against Boochani’s own treatment by the Australian government but a tracing of how the lived experience and literary subjectivity of refugees in the Global South contests facile categorisation and unitary nationalism.'(Publication abstract)

'In his 2018 memoir, No Friends but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani bears witness to the abuses of human rights he and his fellow refugees suffered in the Manus detention centre. While Boochani’s memoir has been largely read in terms of its political criticism of the oppressive system of the prison and colonial and neo-colonial discourses that form its basis, existing readings of his work have also pointed to and celebrated its universal aspect and its broader scope beyond the Manus prison. On this basis, the book has been rightly celebrated. While agreeing with these emphases in previous studies, this article offers a new reading of Boochani’s work that accounts for the transnational and diasporic nature of Boochani’s suffering, struggle and resistance. In doing so, it shows how Boochani’s work – as his own mode of resistance against his unjust ‘offshore’ incarceration – should also be read through the lens of the transnational Kurdish struggle.' (Publication abstract)

'The mediagenic publicity of the multiple prize-winning Kurdish Iranian author Behrouz Boochani has elevated him to an emblematic status for the struggles of refugees, and his 2018 book, No Friend but the Mountains, into a mega-text. These promotional strategies are marked by the mutation of humanitarian awards into convertible cultural capital in the Australian literary field. This article argues that the dissemination of Boochani’s image is qualified with a surplus of affect – in both registers of affectation and of feeling – in the public domain. What I term the “Boochani effect” mobilizes a large number of actors in the cultural sphere to engage with the burgeoning interest in refugee writing, while emphasizing Boochani’s position as simultaneously an “Australian” and a “refugee”. Boochani’s work and author-persona thus generate a “disciplinary trouble”, a problem of taxonomy that both refracts and resists the limits of the mechanisms of identity-making for the refugee writer.' (Publication abstract)

'No Friend But The Mountains - A Voyage Through Song follows Australia's oldest community orchestra across a 2-part special event series offering an incisive look at the political and creative challenges behind the making of Australian composer Luke Styles’ newest work "No Friend but the Mountains: A Symphonic Song Cycle" (inspired by the book "No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison" by Behrouz Boochani)'.

Source: Production blurb.

(Publication abstract)