From Mountains to Oceans: The Prison Narratives of Behrouz Boochani

Abstract

The political autobiography No Friend but the Mountains revolves around the lived experiences of Behrouz Boochani, first as a Kurdish undocumented refugee, through his boat journey to Australia, and then as a detainee in an Australian offshore immigration detention center on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea). By considering diverse literary techniques and forms of expression and the dichotomy between poetic language and realistic mode, this essay analyzes Boochani’s reflections on the systematic violence and abuse in the prison and immigration system, and the “coloniality of power” in general from the perspective of a Kurd whose preoccupation with his cultural/national “identity” and “homeland” is greatly influenced by the traumatic experiences of war and conflicts that led him to flee Kurdistan. It also examines the influence of Kurdish oral and written literary traditions on his narration.