Popular British chef Jamie Oliver is stopping sales of his children’s book due to criticism from Aboriginal people in Australia, who have accused him of being “disrespectful” of their history, the Guardian reported on Sunday.
The story of “Billy and the Epic Escape”, a fiction, takes place mainly in England but briefly passes through Australia, where the villain of the book kidnaps a young Aboriginal woman from her family. “welcome,” says the “Guardian”.
This act present in the work aroused the anger of indigenous communities in Australia. A corporation of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander authors said the work was “disrespectful” and contributed to “erasing, trivializing and stereotyping First Nations peoples and experiences”, a term used to describe the first inhabitants of the Australia. This collective called for the sale of the book to be stopped, according to the “Guardian”.
“Billy and the Great Escape” has thus been withdrawn in “all countries where it holds rights”, notably in the United Kingdom and Australia, its publisher Penguin Random House UK told the “Guardian” on Sunday.
Thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were abducted and placed in foster care under an Australian government policy that continued into the 1970s. These cohorts of children are known as the name “Stolen Generations”.
Jamie Oliver, who is in Australia to promote his latest cookbook, said he was “devastated” to have offended these communities and assured them he had offered them his “sincere” apologies, according to the Guardian. “It was never my intention to misinterpret this deep and painful problem,” added the chef to 11 million subscribers on Instagram, confirming the end of the sale of the book.
According to the “Guardian”, several indigenous terms are misused there. “It is clear that our publishing standards were not up to par,” Penguin Random House UK acknowledged in a statement. However, it was still possible to order “Billy and the Great Escape” online on Sunday.
Jamie Oliver, made famous in 1999 by the show “The Naked Chef”, has participated in a multitude of television programs and published numerous books in addition to having become a widely followed personality on the networks social.
