Shortly after the release of No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison (Picador, 2018), both Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian, author and translator, engaged in a public discussion (18 November 2018) at the Coventry Library in Stirling, Adelaide Hills, organised by the Adelaide Vigil for Manus and Nauru. Behrouz was speaking via Skype from Manus, and Omid was in Australia while on leave from teaching at the American University in Cairo. This article is an edited version of that conversation – the first time the two explored the central issues raised by the book and the accompanying translator’s essays.

SUE NASH: We would like to acknowledge that the place on which we meet is the traditional land of the Peramangk and Kaurna peoples and that we respect their spiritual relationship with their country. We acknowledge the Peramangk and Kaurna peoples as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide Hills and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still important to the living Peramangk and Kaurna peoples today.