“…This counter-story provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of the lives and treatment of asylum seekers detained in centres by the Australian government, despite efforts by the Australian government “which went to extreme lengths to prevent refugee's stories being told [and] constantly [sought] to deny journalists access to Manus Island and Nauru” (Richard Flanagan, forward , Boochani, 2018, p. viii). We adopt as our method a close-reading approach (Amernic and Craig, 2017; Cortese and Andrew, 2020; Twyford, 2021), and in doing so, we follow prior studies using single documents as the primary empirical source (see Amernic and Craig, 2000; Craig and Amernic, 2004; Moerman and van der Laan, 2007; Craig and Brennan, 2012; Pupovac and Moerman, 2017), whilst attending to Scobie's (2021, p. 125) call that “reading this book [Boochani's counter-story], and any others in the genre … are necessary for any social accounting researchers thinking about borders, prisons and migration, or any researchers thinking about social issues more broadly.”…”