Translation as Freedom, Experimentation, and Sharing: Omid Tofighian on Translating No Friend but the Mountains

After the publication of No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison and the book being awarded the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature, Behrouz Boochani and translator and collaborator Omid Tofighian (Farsi-English) were invited to speak at many festivals together, in addition to seminars, workshops, and other venues. A small number of events focused on translation, and in June 2019 Tofighian participated in two sessions at the Emerging Writers’ Festival in Melbourne, Australia. Stephanie Bennett, then the senior editor of RMIT’s magazine The Gazette, interviewed Tofighian.