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= Mark Isaacs = Mark Isaacs, (born 25 January 1988) is an Australian writer and author of non-fiction. He published The Undesirables: Inside Nauru (Hardie Grant, 2014), an account of his time working for the Salvation Army in the Nauru detention centre.

Early life
Isaacs was born in Oxford, England in 1988 and his family immigrated to Australia by plane just one year later. He grew up in the northern suburbs of Sydney. Isaacs graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney in 2011 with a BA in Communications (Writing and Cultural Studies) and a BA in International Studies (Latin American Studies).

The Undesirables: Inside Nauru
In September 2012, Isaacs was employed by the Salvation Army to work at the Nauru detention centre. Julia Gillard had just reintroduced The Pacific Solution and the offshore detention centre regime as a way to control the flow of people coming to Australia by boat to seek asylum. Isaacs eventually resigned from the Salvation Army in June 2013 and spoke out publicly against the government’s No Advantage policy.

The Undesirables: Inside Nauru was published in March 2014 and was the first detailed account of life inside the Nauru detention centre.

“The Undesirables, an account from within the asylum seeker system, is all the more powerful a record for the unpretentious voice of the author. The tale Mark Isaacs tells is angry but disarming, since Isaacs himself is a bewildered pilgrim…The Undesirables is packed with surprising instances of sometimes small-scale but continual attrition of the spirits of the detained.” Tom Keneally, Author, Man Booker Prize winner, Miles Franklin Award winner

Workers inside Australian detention centres were restricted from speaking out by stringent confidentiality clauses and threats of legal action from employers and the government. Isaacs became a whistleblower in order to speak publicly about his experiences. Isaacs has since become a vocal advocate in favour of better treatment of people seeking asylum in Australia. He has appeared in documentaries, articles, radio stories, and news programs relating to Nauru, most memorably in the documentary Chasing Asylum.\

Writing
Isaacs continues to write freelance and publishes works regularly in publications such as Foreign Policy, World Policy Journal, Huffington Post, New Internationalist, VICE, Mamamia, New Matilda, Conscious Magazine, Roads and Kingdoms.