WINNER OF THE ABIA AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR 2020

In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island. This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric firsthand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through five years of incarceration and exile.

At the time of recording, Behrouz was still being held on Manus Island. Normally the author is given the opportunity to read his own words but because he was not able to participate, a chorus of advocates have come together to speak not so much for Behrouz but with him.

Narrated by Richard Flanagan, Mathilda Imlah, Geoffrey Robertson, Janet Galbraith, Thomas Keneally, Sarah Dale, Yumi Stynes, Isobelle Carmody, Benjamin Law and Omid Tofighian.

Where have I come from? From the land of rivers, the land of waterfalls, the land of ancient chants, the land of mountains....
People would run to the mountains to escape the warplanes and found asylum within their chestnut forests....
Do Kurds have any friends other than the mountains?

Winner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Prize for Literature and the Prize for Non-Fiction 2019
Winner of the NSW Premier's Award 2019
Winner of the Abia General Fiction Book of the Year 2019
Winner of the National Biography Award 2019
Inaugural Winner of the Behrouz Boochani Award for Services to Anthropology
Finalist for the Terzani Prize 2020
Longlisted for the Colin Roderick Literary Award 2019