Author(s): Adam Thompson

Short Stories | First Nations (lutruwita/Tasmania) | Always Was, Always Will Be | First Nations Fiction | Book Club Reads 2023

The stories in Born Into This throw light on a world of unique cultural practice and perspective, from Indigenous rangers trying to instil some pride in wayward urban teens on the harsh islands off the coast of Tasmania, to those scraping by on the margins of white society railroaded into complex and compromised decisions. To this mix Adam Thompson manages to bring humour, pathos and occasionally a sly twist as his characters confront racism, untimely funerals, classroom politics and, overhanging all like a discomforting, burgeoning awareness for both white and black Australia, the inexorable damage and disappearance of the remnant natural world.

FULLERS REVIEW — DANNY

Adam's writing is everything at once: angry, loving, political, funny and overflowing with a deep care for and familiarity with place and people. There are just 16 stories in his first collection, but there is such diversity in their telling and his characters so compelling that it paints a much larger world than these 200 odd pages suggest.

Collectively they fill a gap in our understanding of life down here and I believe it is destined to become a classic of the island.