Transnational communities for dismantling detention: From Manus Island to the UK

Behrouz Boochani published No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison in 2018 which went on to win the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature while he was still incarcerated in Manus Prison. Since its publication the book has attracted a great deal of worldwide attention, particualrly from UK academics – it was released in the UK in 2019. Prior to winning Australia’s richest literary award his film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time had its world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival and its international premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. The feature-length film has also been screened at numerous UK universities. In February 2020 Behrouz and translator Omid Tofighian engaged with academics and activists in the UK over a series of events; this article is an edited version of various conversations that emerged from these collaborations and critically discusses the global nature of border violence and the colonial ideology at the heart of immigration detention.