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Refugee, asylum seeker, detainee, and now... prize-winning author.
It was an honor to speak with Behrooz Boochani.
#behrouzboochani #nofriendbutthemountains #manus #manusisland #cnn #newsstream #VPLA2019
Just spoke with author Behrouz Boochani, who has won two of Australia's richest literary prizes. He is also a refugee currently held in a detention camp in Papua New Guinea.
While in detention, Boochani used his cell phone to write his over 300 page novel -- text-by-text -- via WhatsApp. He tells me he had to hide his phone from guards to keep writing.
His prose is both beautiful and brutal:
"One month has passed since I was exiled to Manus. I am a piece of meat thrown into an unknown land; a prison of filth and heat. I dwell among a sea of people with faces stained and shaped by anger, faces scarred with hostility. Every week, one or two planes land in the island's wreck of an airport and throngs of people disembark. Hours later, they are tossed into the prison among the deafening ruckus of displaced people, like sheep to a slaughterhouse.”
During our phone interview, I wanted Boochani to read a passage from his novel, "No Friend But the Mountains."
But he could not.
Boochani doesn't have a copy of his own award-winning book while he remains in detention.
Our conversation airs today on News Stream. 9p Hong Kong. 1p GMT. I hope you can join me then.
#behrouzboochani #nofriendbutthemountains #manus #manusisland #cnn #newsstream #VPLA2019
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/31/australia/manus-asylum-seeker-literary-prize-scli-intl/index.html
Just spoke with author Behrouz Boochani, who has won two of Australia's richest literary prizes. He is also a refugee currently held in a detention camp in Papua New Guinea.
While in detention, Boochani used his cell phone to write his over 300 page novel -- text-by-text -- via WhatsApp. He tells me he had to hide his phone from guards to keep writing.
His prose is both beautiful and brutal:
"One month has passed since I was exiled to Manus. I am a piece of meat thrown into an unknown land; a prison of filth and heat. I dwell among a sea of people with faces stained and shaped by anger, faces scarred with hostility. Every week, one or two planes land in the island's wreck of an airport and throngs of people disembark. Hours later, they are tossed into the prison among the deafening ruckus of displaced people, like sheep to a slaughterhouse.”
During our phone interview, I wanted Boochani to read a passage from his novel, "No Friend But the Mountains."
But he could not.
Boochani doesn't have a copy of his own award-winning book while he remains in detention.
Our conversation airs today on News Stream. 9p Hong Kong. 1p GMT. I hope you can join me then.
#behrouzboochani #nofriendbutthemountains #manus #manusisland #cnn #newsstream #VPLA2019
https://edition.cnn.com/…/manus-asylum-seeker-li…/index.html
