Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Behrouz Boochani and the Penal Archipelago
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A writer. A great Australian writer', Richard Flanagan writes in the foreword to Behrouz Boochani's No Friend But the Mountains (2018, Picador). In a comment designed to spark public conversation regarding Australia's ethical obligation to the incarcerated immigrants on islands inside and outside our coastline, Flanagan puts into play the tenuous category of the 'Australian writer'. Boochani's incorporation into Australia's literary community, enunciates a paradoxical idea of nationhood, one that is flexible, discursive, and open: all the qualities that our politicians oppose. Leaving aside the probability that the writer may not wish to associate himself with Australia in future, Flanagan hypothesises that the national borders policed by Peter Dutton can be discursively reoriented in light of Boochani's contribution. The irony underlying Flanagan's inclusion of Boochani thereby prompts a review of what constitutes a national literary community.' (From introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Overland Health no. 239 Winter Jonathan Dunk (editor), Evelyn Araluen (editor), 2020 20735290 2020 periodical issue

    'Health, wellness, well-being, words which resonate with the most basic social questions of how we are toward one another. This year our answers have been drastically rearranged – we care for one another with distance, and forego almost all the habits of flourishing or eudaimonia. Not that it’s ever been simple: our essayists for Overland 239 approach these problems from a wide variety of intersecting experiences and disciplines.' (Publication summary)

    2020
    pg. 49-59
Last amended 10 Nov 2020 13:54:58
49-59 Behrouz Boochani and the Penal Archipelagosmall AustLit logo Overland
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