Freedom, Only Freedom

Behrouz Boochani’s prison writings transcend journalism to become both a cry for justice, and an anatomy of a brutal prison system designed to strip its inmates of their identity, their aspirations, their agency, and crush their spirit. His writings are urgent, eloquent, and desperately poetic. Writing from within his Manus Prison, Boochani exposes the horror and inhumanity of Australia’s offshore detention system, yet he also captures the uniqueness, comradeship, and intimate acts of resistance of his fellow inmates, and affirms their full humanity. He fulfils his mission, his “duty to history”, and ensures that this dark chapter in Australian history, and those who suffered its consequences are not forgotten. A tour de force in bearing witness. * Arnold Zable, author of The Fig Tree *
International law entitled people fleeing persecution to claim asylum. But those who seek refuge in Australia are subjected to indefinite offshore detention – a form of torture designed to sap their spirit and traumatise their minds. Behrouz Boochani survives to tell the truth about the cruelty of this policy, in a book which should open the eyes of Australians to a cruelty for which they are politically and morally responsible. These are writings of literary power and first-hand authenticity, with a message of urgent importance at a time when the siren slogan of “offshore detention” is appealing to governments in the UK and elsewhere. When will we recognise that it is both unprincipled and inhumane to punish the innocent? * Geoffrey Robertson AO QC *
No Friend But the Mountains was a classic of Australian literature; Freedom, Only Freedom is something better. It is the definitive statement on freedom from a diverse group of writers working together on familiar themes. * ArtsHub *
Behrouz Boochani’s newspaper articles about the “Manus Prison” have lost none of their original immediacy. This book also showcases some of the rich conversations prompted by his writings. A must-read for anybody wondering about what might happen when governments opt for an Australian “solution” and shirk their responsibilities towards refugees. * Klaus Neumann, author of Across the Seas (2015) *
Behrouz Boochani’s work matters not merely because it bears journalistic witness to the brutality of mandatory refugee detentions but also because it distils that experience into a sophisticated theory of power and resistance. This book offers a deep engagement with a truly original writer. * Jeff Sparrow, author of Crimes Against Nature, (2021) *
No writer wants to be a prison writer, no exile dreams of displacement without end. But nothing illuminates totalitarian thinking better than the power of creative imagination. We are fortunate that Behrouz Boochani and his friends summoned the courage to push the experience of Australia’s refugee regime into words. This stunning collection chronicles Boochani’s determination not to vanish. Freedom, Only Freedom is absolutely necessary reading for all those who want to understand what moral responsibility, political courage, and the anti-totalitarian imagination mean today. * Lyndsey Stonebridge, Professor of Humanities and Human Rights, University of Birmingham, UK, and author of Placeless People *
Focused on - but not limited to - his individual journey into exile, Behrouz Bouchani’s Freedom Only Freedom offers a provocative and vivid criticism of politics of incarceration, alienation, and subjugation of displaced refugees across the world with specific reference to the case Australia. He has created a new lexicon to reckon with the traumas of border-crossing, displacement, and alienation. * Fatemeh Shams, author of A Revolution in Rhyme: Poetic Co-Option Under the Islamic Republic *
A necessary book in the era of border fetishism. Boochani shows us that the current punitive migrationmeasures are rooted in a racist colonial history. Through linking the struggle of the indigenous people of Kurdistan to the struggle of migrants incarcerated by the Australian state in Manus Prison Boochani unfolds how a progressive political subjectivity emerges from the ruins of the nation-states system. Freedom, Only Freedom is a collection of critical and thoughtful contributions to scholarship on contemporary bordering practices. * Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University, Sweden *
Manus is a polite form of torture, designed to deny us the privilege of people like Behrouz. It is often forgotten that the trial judgment in the Tampa case was delivered just 8 hours before the terrible 9/11 attack on America. Our government ramped up calling boat people like Behrouz “illegals”. It’s a lie: Behrouz points out that he broke no law, committed no crime, and had no trial, but was jailed for years. * Julian Burnside, AO, KC *
This collected volume of Boochani's prison writings - supported and contextualised by essays from experts in migration, refugee rights, politics and literature - is profound and necessary reading for anyone interested in literature and human rights. Boochani's prison writings, though produced under horrendous conditions, are poetic, sharp in observation and generous in ambit. His body of work documenting firsthand the atrocities inflicted on refugees by the Australian government and their mandatory detention policies has allowed the world to bear witness to human rights violations which might otherwise have remained in the dark. * Maxine Clarke, Author of The Hate Race *
The poetic and essayistic pieces in Freedom, Only Freedom: The Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani exemplify the intersection of his prodigious literary and artistic creativity with his formidable political-geographical, political-scientific and journalistic expertise. Boochani and his collaborators undo familiar frames of reference with respect to the political space of incarcerated seekers of sanctuary and share intimate imaginaries of environmentally conceived pathways to healing and justice. * Rita Sakr, Maynooth University, Ireland *