Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian will be speaking at various locations in the United Kingdom during the month of February.

Behrouz is a Kurdish-Iranian refugee who was held in a detention center in Manus Island (Papua New Guinea), for over six years while attempting to seek asylum in Australia. He wrote a book about his experiences, No Friend but the Mountains, entirely via WhatsApp messages which was translated by Omid. Omid travels to locations around the globe to speak about the book, and Behrouz video-chats into the talks. Behrouz is scheduled to speak at all of the events in the UK, except for those specified. The talks address issues revolving around human rights, displacement, exile, border violence, and incarceration.

Behrouz has won Australia’s National Biography Award, the Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) for general non-fiction book of the year, a special award in the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction.

The events are as follows: 

• February 5: open seminar at the University of Oxford
• February 6: open seminar at Lancaster University 
• February 7: open seminar and workshop at the University of Cambridge (Behrouz will only be speaking in the open seminar)
• February 19: open seminar at the University of Sheffield
• February 20: open seminar at the University of Leeds
• February 21: book launch at Birkbeck, University of London
• March 10: conference session at the London Book Fair (Behrouz will not be speaking)