Free Public Lecture
Sunday 23 June 2019, 6pm-7.30pm
Dunningham Suite, Floor 4, Dunedin City Library
On Sunday 23 June we co-hosted an evening with Kurdish-Iranian writer, filmmaker, and refugee Behrouz Boochani, who is currently incarcerated by the Australian government in the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre (Papua New Guinea). Boochani is author of No Friend but the Mountains: Writings from Manus Prison, which won the 2019 Victorian Prize of Literature at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) General Non-Fiction Book of the Year. Behrouz joined us via video link from Manus Island for the event. We were also joined in person by Omid Tofighian, translator of No Friend but the Mountains, and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo and Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney.
Boochani and Tofighian were in conversation with Dr Neil Vallelly (Centre for Global Migrations, University of Otago) discussing the book, Australian and other border regimes, and the impact of anti-migrant politics in our era. Three Dunedin poets presented poetry on themes of displacement.
A press release with commentary from Dr Neil Vallelly is available here.
You can read a media interview with Boochani here.
A recording of the event is on You Tube here.
This event was presented in association with English Language Partners, UNESCO City of Literature, Dunedin Public Libraries, and the Centre for Global Migrations and the Programme of English and Linguistics at the University of Otago.
