Book cover for No Friend but the Mountains

No Friend but the Mountains

Synopsis

Details

11 July 2019
780 minutes
Benjamin Law, Geoffrey Robertson, Isobelle Carmody, Janet Galbraith, Mathilda Imlah, Omid Tofighian, Richard Flanagan, Sarah Dale, Thomas Keneally, Yumi Stynes
9781529028508
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

A chant, a cry from the heart, a lament, fuelled by a fierce urgency, written with the lyricism of a poet, the literary skills of a novelist, and the profound insights of an astute observer of human behaviour and the ruthless politics of a cruel and unjust imprisonment.
The systems of containment and control that the rich world applies to many thousands of migrants and refugees work by reducing people to a faceless presence to either be feared or pitied, but never listened to. In the face of this oppression, Behrouz Boochani's lyrical yet unsparing account is a vital act of resistance, and a unique examination of people pushed to life's extremes.
Not for the faint-hearted, it's a powerful, devastating insight into a situation that's so often seen through a political - not personal - lens.
No Friend but the Mountains, quite apart from the extraordinary circumstances of its writing, gives us a powerfully vivid account of the experiences of a refugee: desperation, brutality, suffering, and all observed with an eye that seems to see everything and told in a voice that’s equal to the task.