SYDNEY, Australia — A stateless Kurdish-Iranian asylum-seeker detained by the Australian government won the country’s highest-paying literary prize on Thursday. But he could not attend the festivities to accept the award.

Behrouz Boochani, a writer, journalist and filmmaker who has been held in offshore detention on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea for more than five years, won the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature for his book, “No Friend but the Mountains.”

The prestigious award, selected from a short list of winners in other categories, grants the winning author 125,000 Australian dollars (about $90,000) and counts the country’s most prominent writers among its recipients.

Mr. Boochani fled Iran after the police there arrested several of his journalist colleagues and raided his office. After the Australian Navy intercepted his boat as he was trying to reach the country, he was sent to Manus Island in 2013.