The Undesirables


Book Description

When it comes to asylum seekers on Nauru, we learn only what the Australian government wants us to know. In the wake of The Nauru Files, see eyewitness accounts of what is happening inside the Nauru detention centre through The Undesirables.

Mark Isaacs went to work inside the Nauru detention centre in 2012. As a Salvation Army employee, he provided humanitarian aid to the men interned in the camp. What hesaw there moved him to write this book.

The Undesirables chronicles his time on Nauru, detailing daily life and the stories of the men held there; the self-harm, suicide attempts, and riots; the rare moments of joy; the moments of deep despair. He takes us behind the gates of Nauru and humanises a political debate usually ruled by misleading rhetoric.

In a strange twist of fate, Mark’s father, Professor David Isaacs, travelled to Nauru in December 2014 to investigate how children were treated in detention. This revised edition of The Undesirables reveals the human rights abuses Professor Isaacs discovered on Nauru, and interrogates how little has changed for people in detention.

Mark Isaacs is a writer, a community worker, an adventurer, and a campaigner for social justice. He resigned from the Salvation Army in June 2013 and spoke out publicly against the government’s No Advantage policy. After returning from Nauru, Mark worked at an asylum seeker settlement agency in Sydney. Mark appeared in Eva Orner’s 2016 documentary Chasing Asylum and has written for Foreign Policy, World Policy Journal, Huffington Post, New Internationalist, Mamamia, New Matilda and VICE.




International Status in the Shadow of Empire


Book Description

This book offers a new account of Nauru's imperial history and examines its significance in the history of international law.




Legends, Traditions and Tales of Nauru


Book Description

In a fast globalizing world, group histories,traditions and memories, especially of smaller countries, are at risk of being lost. In 1938, Head Chief Detudamo had the foresight to transcribe and then translate, a series of lectures relating to the legends, customs and tales of Nauru, delivered by what he termed 'native teachers'. Seventy years later, in line with its aim of ensuring that the historic and contemporary 'voice' of the Pacific is heard on the world stage, IPS Publications is pleased to make them more widely available in this, THE LEGENDS, TRADITIONS AND TALES OF NAURU. This book is funded by the Government of Nauru.




Ocean Island and Nauru


Book Description

Ocean Island and Nauru: their story.




Seeking Asylum


Book Description

The voices Australia should hear This beautifully illustrated book captures the stories of those who have lived the experience of seeking asylum. In their own voices, contributors share how they came to be in Australia, and explore diverse aspects of their lives: growing up in a refugee camp, studying for a PhD, changing attitudes through soccer, being a Muslim in a small country town, campaigning against racism, surviving detention, holding onto culture, dreaming of being reunited with family. There are stories of love, pain, injustice, achievement and everything in between. Accompanied by beautiful portrait photographs, they show the depth and diversity of people’s experience and trace the impact of Australia’s immigration policies. Seeking Asylum also includes a foreword by Liliana Maria and an essay by Abdul Karim Hekmat on the human, social and political impact of Australia’s treatment of people seeking asylum over the last fifty years. With an afterword by Kon Karapanagiotidis and supporting material demystifying Australia’s current policies from Julian Burnside, Seeking Asylum redefines assumptions about people who have sought asylum and inspires readers to take action to create a more welcoming Australia. 100% of the proceeds from Seeking Asylum: Our Stories will be reinvested by the ASRC to fund projects that build people’s capacity to tell their story in their own way and provide opportunities to amplify their voices. One area of investment will continue to be the ASRC’s Community Advocacy and Power Program (CAPP). The CAPP training program, offered nationally, provides participants with skills in advocacy, community organising / mobilising, public speaking and effective media engagement.




The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe


Book Description

A beguiling exploration of the joys of reading across boundaries, inspired by the author’s year-long journey through a book from every country. Ann Morgan writes in the opening of this delightful book, "I glanced up at my bookshelves, the proud record of more than twenty years of reading, and found a host of English and North American greats starting down at me…I had barely touched a work by a foreign language author in years…The awful truth dawned. I was a literary xenophobe." Prompted to read a book translated into English from each of the world's 195 UN-recognized countries (plus Taiwan and one extra), Ann sought out classics, folktales, current favorites and commercial triumphs, novels, short stories, memoirs, and countless mixtures of all these things. The world between two covers, the world to which Ann introduces us with affection and no small measure of wit, is a world rich in the kind of narratives that engage us passionately: we meet an irreverent junk food–obsessed heroine in Kuwait, an explorer from Togo who spent years among the Inuit in Greenland, and a former child circus performer of Roma background seeking sanctuary in Switzerland. Ann's quest explores issues that affect us all: personal, political, national, and global. What is cultural heritage? How do we define national identity? Is it possible to overcome censorship and propaganda? And, above all, why and how should we read from other cultures, languages, and traditions? Illuminating and inspiring, The World Between Two Covers welcomes us into the global community of stories.




No Friend but the Mountains


Book Description

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




The Stories Behind the Stories


Book Description

Did you know that J.K. Rowling came up with Harry Potter while waiting for a delayed train? Or that Winnie the Pooh was inspired by a real bear who lived in the London Zoo? Or that Dav Pilkey's teacher once ripped up his drawings as a kid and told him he'd never make a living making silly comics? (Maybe we should introduce her to Captain Underpants.) In The Stories Behind the Stories, you'll hear all these incredible stories about your favorite kid's books and authors and much more! Includes full-color illustrations plus other fascinating facts and tidbits to satisfy even the most curious reader.




They Cannot Take the Sky


Book Description

Revealing, moving and confronting accounts of the reality of life in mandatory detention by those who've experienced it. For more than two decades, Australia has locked up people who arrive here fleeing persecution - sometimes briefly, sometimes for years. In They Cannot Take the Sky those people tell their stories, in their own words. Speaking from inside immigration detention on Manus Island and Nauru, or from within the Australian community after their release, the narrators reveal not only their extraordinary journeys and their daily struggles but also their meditations on love, death, hope and injustice. Their candid testimonies are at times shocking and hilarious, surprising and devastating. They are witnesses from the edge of human experience. The first-person narratives in They Cannot Take the Sky range from epic life stories to heartbreaking vignettes. The narrators who have shared their stories have done so despite the culture of silence surrounding immigration detention, and the real risks faced by those who speak out. Once you have heard their voices, you will never forget them. 'This book is extraordinary and humbling and necessary.' Anna Funder 'These are the stories you will read and never forget. All Australians must read this book.' Alexis Wright 'We have waited too long for an anthology like this. Deftly drawn, wide-ranging, and painstakingly edited and collected, these engaging stories from immigration detention are desperate and passionate; harrowing and inspirational; beautiful and forlorn.' Maxine Beneba Clarke 'This is a book whose human, frank, illuminating voices the government does not want to hear from.' Tom Keneally




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