Cirrus@Austlit

'Born in Sydney, Andrew Booth had a diverse and senior career in the public sector. Subsequently he freelanced as a government advisor in Australia and then in the South Pacific where, in a case of mistaken identity, he was once shot at. He took up writing full time when he arrived in Queensland some years ago. His first work, The First Octoroon is a work of fiction based in fact, inspired by the writer's discovery that he was an experimental child, that his birth was the result of a state sanctioned scientific experiment, a large-scale genetic intervention called Assimilation, intended to eliminate the perceived menace of Aboriginal 'half-castes' by ‘breeding out the colour’. He writes from the standpoint of a fully assimilated, i.e. whitened, Aboriginal man engaged in the surreal process of unassimilating. He tells a story that was never meant to be told, of the slowly decaying radioactive half-life which is the personal aftermath of Assimilation, of the subsequent psychic dislocation of generations of Australians whose true origins were concealed or subsumed rather than stolen.'

Source:

Queensland Literary Awards (http://qldliteraryawards.org.au/about/shortlists/david-unaipon-award-shortlist#booth). Sighted: 11/9/2015