Mohammad Ali Maleki is a poet originally from Iran. He has been writing from within Australia’s prison camp in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, over the past two years. Mohammad previously worked as a tailor and film/theatre set builder. In Manus prison he built a garden and much of his writing has grown with the life-sustaining practice of gardening.
Mansour Shoshtari, also exiled to Manus, works closely with Mohammad to translate his work from Farsi to English. Mohammad’s poems have been published in Verity La, Blue Pepper and Rochford Street Review, and he was shortlisted for the Red Room Company’s New Shoots Poetry Prize 2016. His poems were performed in Writing Through Fences’ bilingual show Through The Moon at the 2017 Queensland Poetry Festival.
Mohammad has published a small, illustrated poetry book, The Strong Sunflower, (Writing Through Fences, 2018) and a chapbook of his work, Truth in the Cage, (ed. Michele Seminara) is to be released later in 2018.