Winner of Australia’s richest literary award, No Friend but the Mountains is Kurdish-Iranian journalist and refugee Behrouz Boochani’s account of his detainment on Australia’s notorious Manus Island prison. Composed entirely by text message, this work represents the harrowing experience of stateless and imprisoned refugees and migrants around the world. In 2013, Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island, a refugee detention centre off the coast of Australia. He has been there ever since. This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait of five years of incarceration and exile. Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature, No Friend but the Mountains is an extraordinary account — one that is disturbingly representative of the experience of the many stateless and imprisoned refugees and migrants around the world. “Our government jailed his body, but his soul remained that of a free man.” — From the Foreword by Man Booker Prize–winning author Richard Flanagan
As American tanks came to a halt on the Euphrates at the close of the war against Saddam Hussein, President Bush called on the oppressed peoples of Iraq to rise up against their ruler. Thousands of peshmerga (Kurdish guerrillas) responded, seizing the towns and countryside of northern Iraq. But after Saddam signed the truce with the U.N. forces, he sent his surviving units north, slaughtering the lightly-armed Kurds and driving millions more into exile while the Allies stood aside. For the Kurds, it was one more betrayal in their long and tragic history. In No Friends but the Mountains, veteran Middle East journalists John Bulloch and Harvey Morris provide the only history of the Kurdish people available today. Ranging from their earliest origins to the aftermath of the Gulf War, Bulloch and Morris trace the course of the Kurds' past and identify the pressures that have denied them a state of their own for so many centuries. Numbering some sixteen million and spread across five countries, the Kurds are the world's largest nationality without a state--a people divided among themselves in their struggle for independence, the pawns of rival governments throughout history. Bulloch and Morris show how they were exploited by the Turks and the Great Powers in the days of the Ottoman Empire, how the British, French, and the new Turkish republic subverted Woodrow Wilson's promise of a Kurdish state in 1918, and how the Kurds' revolts and insurrections led to further repression. Later the peshmerga guerrillas were funded and manipulated by Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Israel, and the CIA--while the Turkish government has harshly repressed any signs of Kurdish identity, banning the use of the Kurdish language until only recently. Both Saddam and Khomeini's government sought to use the Kurds to their own advantage during the long Iran-Iraq War. Bulloch and Morris trace the history of the main Kurdish organizations, such as the PKK in Turkey and the KDP in Iraq, underscoring the divisions that are threatening Kurdish survival at a time when the Iraqi army stands poised to attack the "safe haven" established by the U.N. This authoritative, highly readable account details the story of the rebellion, exile, and return that followed the Gulf War, providing a critical historical perspective on these momentous events. Written by two leading Middle East journalists, No Friends But the Mountains offers the first history of the long-suffering people at the center of one of the world's most explosive conflicts.
Caldecott Honor Book! "An evocative remembrance of the simple pleasures in country living; splashing in the swimming hole, taking baths in the kitchen, sharing family times, each is eloquently portrayed here in both the misty-hued scenes and in the poetic text." -Association for Childhood Education International
A leading expert on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism offers a comprehensive theory of "competitive control" that will apply to the future of conflict in a world of explosive population growth, increased urbanization, the movement of population centers to the coasts, and global connective networks.
The legendary mountaineer describes his adventures in such ranges as the Alps and Himalayas, and provides details of what really happened during a controversial 1954 Italian expedition that made the first ascent of K2.
Longlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction A Black Caucus of the American Library Association 2019 Honor title, Fiction "McFadden, writer of great, imaginative novels for years now (including Sugar and Gathering of Waters), is back with one of her best yet. Exploring ritual sacrifice in contemporary West Africa, Praise Song offers a fascinating, painful glimpse into a world beyond America's shores, filled with tragedy and love and hope." --Entertainment Weekly "Perhaps one of the best books of the year, Praise Song for the Butterflies is a stunning, brief portrait that humanizes the plight of those in ritual servitude. It's a fantastic work from a gifted author." --The Gazette "A fictional West African country is the setting for Bernice L. McFadden's latest work, Praise Song for the Butterflies. Here we meet Abeo Kata, a 9-year-old girl who is ripped from her privileged lifestyle when her father forces her to become a slave in a religious sect. Rescued after 15 years, Abeo struggles to overcome dark family secrets while learning to love again." --Essence Magazine Included in BookRiot's "22 Upcoming Releases by Authors of Color Featured at BEA" "Bernice L. McFadden's novel Praise Song for the Butterflies has received great reviews and will be published today. The book centers on Abeo Kata, the privileged daughter of a government employee and a stay-at-home mother in West Africa whose happy life changes dramatically after she's placed in a shrine as an offering. Fifteen years later, Abeo is finally rescued and must learn to move beyond her traumatic past." --Good Morning America "McFadden crafts a compassionate, unforgettable story of loss and redemption." --BBC Culture "Recent favorites [at Mahogany Books in Washington, DC] include...award-winning novelist Bernice L. McFadden's forthcoming Praise Song for the Butterflies, about a nine-year-old West African girl sacrificed into religious servitude." --Vanity Fair "The novel has a timeless quality; McFadden is a master of taking you to another time and place. In doing so, she raises questions surrounding the nature of memory, what we allow to thrive, and what we determine to execute...McFadden brings the sweeping drama of her earlier works--The Book of Harlan, Glorious, Gathering of Waters--into this small book, and reminds me of the gentle fierceness of Edwidge Danticat's writing." --Los Angeles Review of Books "Praise Song for the Butterflies is written like a fable--one of devastation, but triumph, too. Bernice L. McFadden's novel sheds light on the long practice of trokosi, ritual servitude to priests." --Refinery29 Abeo Kata lives a comfortable, happy life in West Africa as the privileged nine-year-old daughter of a government employee and stay-at-home mother. But when the Katas' idyllic lifestyle takes a turn for the worse, Abeo's father, following his mother's advice, places the girl in a religious shrine, hoping that the sacrifice of his daughter will serve as atonement for the crimes of his ancestors. Unspeakable acts befall Abeo for the fifteen years she is held in the shrine. When she is finally rescued, broken and battered, she must struggle to overcome her past, endure the revelation of family secrets, and learn to trust and love again. In the tradition of Chris Cleave's Little Bee, this novel is a contemporary story that offers an eye-opening account of the practice of ritual servitude in West Africa. Spanning decades and two continents, Praise Song for the Butterflies will break your heart and then heal it.
When Dr Ben Givens left his Seattle home he never intended to return. It was to be a journey past snow-covered mountains to a place of canyons, sagelands and orchards, where, on the verges of the Columbia River, Ben had entered the world and would now take his leave of it.
Do you ever feel that you are leading in uncharted territory? Pastor and consultant Tod Bolsinger draws on decades of expertise guiding churches and organizations in this expanded practical leadership resource, offering illuminating insights and practical tools to help you reimagine what effective church leadership looks like in our rapidly changing world.
Alex Addleston and Alex Addleston do everything together. They chase Flatt Mountain fireflies. They code secret messages. They collect crawdads named Mr. and Mrs. Sassafras Jorgensen. But when Alex's parents move her family to Kenya, the two friends lose contact with each other. Half a world apart, each Alex still keeps the other close while climbing trees, counting stars, and playing games. One day, just maybe, they will rediscover what it means to be best friends, no matter what.
In this lively satire of contemporary South Pacific life, we meet a familiar cast of characters: multinational experts, religious fanatics, con men, "simple" villagers, corrupt politicians. In writing about this tiny world of flawed personalities, Hau‘ofa displays his wit and range of comic resource, amply exercising what one reviewer called his “gift of seeing absurdity clearly."
