IN SEARCH OF SANCTUARY Refugee Realities in Robyn Hughan’s Journey Beyond Fear

No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison¹ must have a fair claim to be the most politically significant book to have been published in Australia in recent history. Its author, Behrouz Boochani, provides readers with an evocative, firsthand account of what it is like to be an asylum seeker in offshore detention. The immediacy and power of this book leave little doubt that it is an essential political read for any Australian – and, in time, the sheer quality of its writing will no doubt also guarantee its ascendance as a vital piece of literature.

Boochani’s book is, however, only one narrative about those seeking asylum in Australia. Equally deserving of being heard are the stories of those who flee their homes to neighbouring countries, those who are never acknowledged as refugees by the United Nations (UN) and, finally, those asylum seekers who, having been recognised as refugees, make what our government considers to be the ‘right’ choice and wait their turn to be granted entry visas – often for years at a time, in ‘interim’ countries like Malaysia. It is this more common but less controversial reality of asylum seeking that is depicted in Robyn Hughan’s Journey Beyond Fear (2018). The