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Colin Johnson was born in Cuballing, Western Australia on August 21, 1938. During his childhood and young adulthood, he spent time in state care, an orphanage, and Fremantle Prison. He was a novelist and poet who wrote about the struggles of modern Aboriginals to adapt to life in a society dominated by whites. His first book Wild Cat Falling was published in 1965. He changed his name to Mudrooroo Nyoongah in 1988. Afterward he published under the names Mudrooroo Nyoongah, Mudrooroo Narogin, and Mudrooroo.

His other novels included Long Live Sandawara, Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World, Doin Wildcat, Wildcat Screaming, The Kwinkan, Master of the Ghost Dreaming, Undying, Underground, and The Promised Land. His poetry collections included Song Circle of Jacky; Dalwurra, the Black Bittern; Collected Poems; Pacific Highway Boo-Blooz: Country Poems; and Old Fellow Poems. His plays included Big Sunday and Mutjinggaba: The Place of the Old Woman. His nonfiction works included Before the Invasion: Aboriginal Life to 1788; Writing from the Fringe: A Study of Modern Aboriginal Literature; Us Mob: History, Culture, Struggle; and Indigenous Literature of Australia: Milli Milli Wangka.

In 1996 his sister wrote a newspaper article claiming the family's ancestry was Irish and African American and not Indigenous. Due to the public controversy, he left Australia in 2001 and moved to Nepal. He died on January 20, 2019 at the age of 80.

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