Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani

10 reviews

powerwalkingcaterpillar's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Excrement, Deportation, Blood, Torture, Violence, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

 
No Friend But the Mountains was an immensely challenging read but also a very important one. Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish-Iranian journalist whose attempt to seek asylum in Australia saw him detained illegally on Manus Island, an offshore processing centre. He eventually gained refugee status in New Zealand. While held at Manus, he obtained a mobile phone and it to send out his writing, which was translated and eventually published.

The book was challenging in two main ways. The first was style. This is not simply a refugee memoir, although there are elements of that. Rather it is a rigorous examination and critique of Manus island and the treatment of refugees more broadly, one with a theoretical academic framework. It’s part journalism, part autobiography, part political commentary, part philosophy and, part psychoanalytical study, situated within a Kurdish literary tradition as well as an Australian one. It folded in racial and drcolonial analysis and introduced me to terms like kyriarchy and horrific surrealism. In other words my brain got a real work out which it wasn’t expecting.

The other challenge was of course the content. It should come as no surprise that the conditions on Manus were deliberately dehumanising and often horrific. Far more time was devoted to the issue of toileting than I really wanted to read about. But I understood why it warranted so much attention and made me realise my own privilege in being able to choose to read about it or not, rather than be forced to live it. The brutality and callousness of some guards, the Catch-22 like nature of some of the policies and the way they were designed to turn detainees against each other, the fear and uncertainty all took a toll and some detainees took their own lives.

This is not the sort of book you enjoy reading but I do think it is one that as many people as possible, especially those in and around Australia and New Zealand, should read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Colonisation, Confinement, Racism, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Suicide, and Violence

rosaboer's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Self harm, Death, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Trafficking, and Suicide

lucille_c's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicide, Physical abuse, Self harm, Medical trauma, Police brutality, Violence, War, Death, Gore, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture

stuffinmybrainhole's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm and Racism

emilymckay's review

dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Colonisation, Death, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Self harm, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Violence

suso121's review

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Confinement, and Self harm

Moderate: Suicide

lauraleila's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

swordfishtrombone's review

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Self harm, Torture, Violence, and Confinement

plantedreading's review

challenging sad

4.5

This was heavy and unsettling. It took some significant distance to dive back into it, but it’s very beautifully written. The descriptions of self-harm and the medical care on island was particularly difficult. A powerful read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm

Moderate: Physical abuse and Violence