Balga Boy Jackson

Book excerpt: '... a boy born long ago in 1938 who was named Balga or Black Boy. He had an Aboriginal mother and an African-American father who bequeathed to him the spiky mop of hair which gave him his name. So it is said. Now read on.' Balga Boy Jackson is the long awaited new novel of Mudrooroo. He returns to his roots to give us a vivid life story of an Australian Black Boy - naturally with a pun, Balga is the Australian grass tree called in Western Australia, the Black Boy. Mudrooroo, who hails from Cuballing in the West, takes us on Balga Boy's journey to Fitzroy and Kings Cross. The late fifties and early sixties comes alive through Balga's own Blues and musical journey, and he says: "This is how it was, for a lot of us." Old readers of Mudrooroo who enjoyed Wild Cat Falling, Dr. Wooreddy and the Master of the Ghost Dreaming series, will enjoy this book and new readers will begin to understand Australia from a black and blues perspective.