The Giller Prize is awarded to a good writer.  Not a good aboriginal writer, a good part-aboriginal writer or a good non-aboriginal writer.  Is Boyden a good writer or not?  Who cares how much--if any--aboriginal ancestry he may have.

This whole "roots" thing is bogus and serves only to perpetuate difference.   North American aboriginals are themselves descendants of Central Asians.  Does that mean that Central Asians are the gold standard against which all those who share or don't share their genes should be measured?  Cultures come, cultures evolve, cultures disappear.  While it may be necessary to recognize wrongs done in the near past, what one's ancestors were is irrelevant to what one is now.  Get on with it.