The Art of Resistance: Behrouz Boochani in Conversation

PEN Melbourne

Join Behrouz Boochani for his last public appearance in Melbourne in conversation with Arnold Zable.

Solidarity Hall, Victorian Trades Hall

An evening with Kurdish-Iranian writer, journalist, human rights defender and film producer, Behrouz Boochani in conversation with writer and human rights activist, Arnold Zable.With a tribute to poet and refugee activist, Janet Galbraith, the founder of Writing Through Fences, and long-time collaborator with Behrouz. Behrouz Boochani was imprisoned in Australia’s Manus Island detention centre in PNG from 2013 until it closed in 2017. While in detention, Boochani wrote No Friend But the Mountains on his mobile phone and sent it out to his translators as thousands of WhatsApp messages. The memoir won the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction in 2019 while Behrouz remained on Manus Island. In 2020 Behrouz was granted refugee status in New Zealand. Behrouz Boochani's journalism was vital in exposing to the world the injustice of Manus Island and the offshore detention regime. His writings are underpinned by a philosophical analysis of how incarceration works to dehumanise those trapped in these centres when legally seeking refuge. Freedom, Only Freedom, published this year, combines Boochani’s own prison writings with essays from experts on migration, refugee rights, politics, and literature, edited by his translators, Omid Tofighian and Moones Mansoubi.Arnold Zable is an Australian writer, novelist, storyteller and human rights activist. He was introduced to Behrouz Boochani in 2014, his second year of imprisonment on Manus Island, and they have collaborated on various campaigns and projects, including a series of dialogues published inThe Age, Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times. His books include Jewels and Ashes, Café Scheherazade, Scraps of Heaven, Sea of Many Returns, The Fig Tree, Violin Lessons, The Fighter, and most recently, The Watermill. He is the author of numerous stories, features, columns, works for theatre, and has long been active around social justice concerns, in particular those of asylum seekers and refugees. His awards include the Voltaire Prize for the advancement of freedom of expression, and the 2021 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. He is the immediate past president of PEN Melbourne, its current patron, and a long-time member of the MEAA.

Presented by MEAA and PEN International Melbourne Centre.

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