Iranian author Behrouz Boochani held on Manus arrives in New Zealand after six years in detention

Kurdish Iranian author Behrouz Boochani, an asylum seeker who was held on Manus Island, has arrived in New Zealand and says he will never return to Papua New Guinea.

"I just arrived in New Zealand. So exciting to get freedom after more than six years," he said in a tweet on Thursday night.

"I have been invited by Word Festival in Christchurch and will participate in an event here. Thank you to all the friends who made this happen."

Boochani, a journalist, arrived by boat on Christmas Island in July 2013 and sent to Manus a month later, where he has remained.

Boochani travelled to New Zealand on a visiting visa and says he will try to obtain asylum there or in another country, the ABC reports.

"I will never go back to that place," he told the Guardian after leaving PNG.

"I just want to be free of the system, of the process. I just want to be somewhere where I am a person, not just a number, not just a label 'refugee'."

While in detention, Boochani wrote a book, No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, which won this year's Victorian Prize for Literature and the National Biography Award.

He also filmed a documentary of life in the Manus centre on a mobile phone, which has been seen in Australia, London and Berlin.