Using WhatsApp and SMS, refugee Behrouz Boochani writes book on Manus Island suffering

The Kurdish refugee has forged an unlikely career from a Pacific detention centre – as an author, speaker and human rights campaigner – and his portrait of life in the facility won Australia’s Victorian Prize for Literature

Boochani twice attempted to cross the Timor Sea by boat but he and thousands like him have been sent to Canberra’s offshore asylum-processing sites

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Boochani stands outside the detention centre where he was locked up for his first three years on Manus Island. Photo: Jonas Gratzer

Published: 7:00am, 29 Jul 2019Updated: 7:10am, 29 Jul 2019

Behrouz Boochani is not an angry man. He tells me this on the phone from Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, where he has been detained by the Australian government for the past six years.

“I should be angry, but in my personal life, I am a peaceful person,” he says, laughter in his voice.

Boochani is a Kurdish refugee from Iran who twice attempted to make it from Indonesia to Australia by boat in 2013. The first time the wooden vessel sank, and Boochani and other passengers were lucky to survive. The second time they were picked up by local fishermen who passed them on to the Australian navy.

Unfortunately for him, just a few days prior, Australia had announced a new policy with immediate effect. Then prime minister Kevin Rudd said “asylum seekers who come here by boat … will never be settled in Australia”.

Boochani takes a selfie with a local on Manus Island. Photo: Jonas Gratzer

The change marked the beginning of years of offshore detention for thousands of “boatpeople” in tough conditions on Manus and the small Pacific island nation of Nauru, where Canberra has struck deals with the authorities to house processing centres.

Twelve detainees have died at the facilities, and since May this year alone 110 have self-harmed or attempted suicide. The accommodation is simple, in barracks-style units. Boochani nevertheless remains optimistic, despite there being no end in sight to his ordeal.