ERBIL — Kurdish refugee, journalist, and well-known author Behrouz Boochani left Papua New Guinea after six years of detention.
Boochani received a visitor visa to travel to Christchurch, New Zealand to speak at a literary event about his award-winning book, “No Friend but the Mountains”.
He told the ABC that he was not planning to return to Papua New Guinea.
“I just arrived in New Zealand. So exciting to get freedom after more than six years,” Boochani wrote on Twitter. “I have been invited by Word Festival in Christchurch and will participate in an event here. Thank you to all the friends who made this happen.”
Boochani’s masterpiece won him the 2019 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards of $25,000 AUD for a work of non-fiction and an additional $100,000 AUD for the Victorian Prize for Literature.
Boochani was recently been accepted for resettlement in the United States and said he was investigating whether he could fly from New Zealand to the US, once the process was completed, ABC reported.
Due to the long procedures, Boochani said he may seek asylum in New Zealand.
“First, I would like to just spend some time as a free man, but after that I will look at that — is it possible that I go to the US from New Zealand? Or I should stay there?”