An Asylum Seeker Detained On Manus Island Just Won Australia’s Richest Literary Prize

Last night, the winners of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards were announced. The winner of the top prize, worth $100,000, was Behrouz Boochani: a journalist and asylum seeker currently detained on Manus Island.

Boochani won the Victorian Prize for Literature for his first book, No Friend But The Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison. The book also won the $25,000 prize for non-fiction. It was written via text message over the five years (and counting) Boochani has spent detained on Manus Island, and it documents the torture, devastation and human rights abuses he has observed and experienced there.

As Boochani told The Guardian yesterday, “my main aim has always been for the people in Australia and around the world to understand deeply how this system has tortured innocent people on Manus and Nauru in a systematic way for almost six years. I hope this award will bring more attention to our situation, and create change, and end this barbaric policy.”

I think it's so great that Behrouz Boochani won the VPLA for nonfiction tonight, but I'm also struggling with the cognitive dissonance of a nation celebrating the story, the work, of a man we're still torturing. Who is still imprisoned, and kept stateless by us. We must free them

— Omar Sakr (@OmarjSakr) January 31, 2019

This news fills me with joy and despair in equal parts. What a rich contribution the amazing @BehrouzBoochani could have made to Australia. Instead, we've imprisoned him.

Behrouz Boochani: detained asylum seeker wins Australia's richest literary prize https://t.co/8ksp7LpLai

— Gabrielle Jackson (@gabriellecj) January 31, 2019

The news of Boochani’s award has, so far, been met with renewed calls for an end to Australia’s policy of offshore detention. The award comes just days after a religious leader in Papua New Guinea claimed that suicide attempts have now become a daily occurrence on Manus Island, saying that the refugees remaining there must be urgently evacuated.

Let's not make the commentary about Manus *only* about how brilliant Behrouz Boochani is either. No Friend But The Mountains is an extraordinary book, but his work advocates for all his fellow inmates. They are all equally worthy of dignity, justice, and a state to call home.

— Maxine Beneba Clarke (@slamup) January 31, 2019

As the Human Rights Law Centre wrote on Twitter last night, Boochani’s book is “an Australian story that as a nation we cannot be proud of, but it’s a story that cannot be ignored”.

It’s an Australian story that as a nation we cannot be proud of, but it’s a story that cannot be ignored. Congratulations @BehrouzBoochani for winning the top #VPLA2019 prize. Great call @wheelercentre @DanielAndrewsMP & all involved. pic.twitter.com/NtiwiP5jcZ

— HumanRightsLawCentre (@rightsagenda) January 31, 2019

Let this award be yet another reminder not to ignore what our government is doing. In February, Australian Parliament will consider a bill that could ensure that asylum seekers in need of urgent medical treatment will be transferred from Manus or Nauru to Australian hospitals for care. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre is calling for people to call their MPs and urge them to support this bill. You can find out everything you need to know to help out here.