Detained Manus refugee wins Australia’s richest literary prize
Friday, February 1, 2019
SYDNEY (France 24/AFP/Pacific Media Watch): An Iranian asylum-seeker detained in Papua New Guinea under Australian asylum laws has won Australia’s most valuable
literary prize for a book he reportedly wrote using the online messaging service WhatsApp, reports France 24/AFP.
Behrouz Boochani, a Kurd who has been held on PNG’s Manus Island since 2013, was awarded the Victorian Prize for
Literature yesterday, said a statement on a government website for the state of Victoria.
The journalist and filmmaker was awarded the A$100,000 (NZ$106,000) prize for his book No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison.
He will receive an additional A$25,000 after it also won the non-fiction category.
“(Boochani’s) award was accepted by the book’s translator Omid Tofighian, who worked with Boochani over five years to
bring the stories to life,” the state website said.
Media reports said Boochani wrote the work on his phone and sent it to Tofighian bit-by-bit in text messages.
This was because he felt unsafe in the guarded camp, which was shut last year after a local court ruling and the
asylum-seekers moved elsewhere on the island.
For years Canberra has sent asylum-seekers who try to enter the country by boat to Manus Island or Nauru in the Pacific
for processing, with those found to be refugees barred from resettling in Australia.
The harsh policy is meant to deter people embarking on treacherous sea journeys, but the United Nations and other rights
groups have criticised the camps’ conditions and long detention periods.
Boochani’s book beat 27 other shortlisted works published last year in Australia to win the overall prize.
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