After four years of detention on Manus Island, the author writes a poet’s manifesto for the refugee resistance in which he has found himself to be a central figure.

As the Manus Island detention centre is closed, refugees are under mounting pressure to resettle in an area of PNG where they are unsafe and unwanted.

On a tiny island off the coast of Manus, a local family offers asylum seekers kindness and some respite from their ordeal.

“We are the victims of this policy; and for three years, we have been taken as hostages in an official and exiled approach.”

Manus Island claims to have a properly equipped hospital, but for detainees requiring more than just a painkiller, the facilities are grossly inadequate.

“Everyone, in his mind, traces a course of the history of the hellish life on this island, from before the riot in February, a period prisoners call ‘The Great Famine’, to the murder of Reza Barati.”