No Friend but the Mountains

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.Arnold Zable, author of the award-winning Jewels and Ashes and Cafe Scheherazade

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.Daniel Trilling, author of Lights in the Distance

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.GQ

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.Phillip Pullman