Born Into This

“A legacy of cultural destruction in Australia and the disappearance of the natural world loom over stories of Aboriginal rangers, untimely funerals and angry bees in this sharp fiction debut.”
—New York Times Book Review

“With its wit, intelligence and restless exploration of the parameters of race and place, Thompson’s debut collection is a welcome addition to the canon of Indigenous Australian writers.”
—Thuy On, The Guardian

“Born into This by Adam Thompson is a collection of stories that confront the continuing effects of colonization on the human psyche. Thompson, an Indigenous (Pakana) writer from Tasmania, employs crisp prose to unravel the entrenched ideologies of his characters as they contend with cultural erasure, land rights, and tribal identity. Yet, Thompson’s stories run the gamut of demographics, perspectives, locales, and voices, helping to ensure that readers recognize that while there are common themes amongst Indigenous storytellers, no single story can encapsulate the multitudes of even one tribe’s experiences.”
—Ryan Winn, The Tribal College Journal

“Born Into This presents a masterful delineation of culture and identity… Thompson interrogates the irrevocable and ongoing impact of colonization on his community with charm, wit, and humor.”
—Gauraa Shekhar, The Rumpus

“It is easy to place Adam Thompson’s Born Into This alongside other important and groundbreaking voices in contemporary writing such as Billy-Ray Belcourt, Tommy Orange, and Natalie Diaz. With similarly intimate language, sometimes flecked with humor or rage, Thompson’s is a fresh voice speaking for so many people who have been silenced or ignored by the hegemony. The 16 rather short stories of Born Into This span such a range of human experience that any reader may find a home in its pages.”
—Nick Gardner, Cleveland Review of Books

“Adam Thompson’s Born Into This is a striking collection of hard-edged, penetrating stories set primarily in the Australian state of Tasmania and wrestling with issues of race, colonialism and individual agency… These cunning, clever, piercing stories of marginalized indigenous Australians are both compelling and illuminating.”
—Julia Kastner, Shelf Awareness