Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has pulled his new children’s book from the shelves after complaints it stereotyped Indigenous Australians.
The 400-page fantasy novel, Billy and the Epic Escape, features an Aboriginal girl with mystical powers living in foster care who is abducted from her home in central Australia.
First Nations leaders have said the book reproduces “harmful stereotypes” and trivialises the “complex and painful” history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being forcibly removed from their families under government assimilation policies.
Oliver – who is in Australia promoting a new cookbook – has apologised and said he was “devastated” to have caused hurt.
“It was never my intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue,” he said in a statement.
Publisher Penguin Random House UK said that a consultation with Indigenous Australians requested by Oliver had not happened due to an “editorial oversight”.
Critics said the book contained language errors and oversimplified the identity of First Nations character Ruby.
“This superficial treatment of Ruby’s character dehumanises her, and by extension, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” said Sharon Davis of the First Nations educational body Natsiec.
Among the complaints is that Ruby is given the ability to read people’s minds and communicate with animals and plants, because “that’s the Indigenous way”.
Sharon Davis said that reduced “complex and diverse belief systems” to “magic”.
The character is also at the centre of an abduction plot, something community leader Sue-Anne Hunter called a “particularly insensitive choice,” given the “painful historical context” of Australia’s Stolen Generations.
During the 20th Century, tens of thousands of Indigenous children were removed from their families under official government policies aimed at assimilation which assumed black inferiority and white superiority. This government policy continued officially until the 1970s.
“The story’s flippant approach to narrating the theft of a First Nations child dangerously trivialises the ongoing trauma associated with Australia’s violent history of child removal,” Natsiec said.
They added that today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 10 times more likely non-Indigenous children to be removed from their families into foster care or other systems.
Critics have also pointed out language errors in the book. The character is from Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory but uses vocabulary from the language of the Gamilaraay people of the states of New South Wales and Queensland.
Sharon Davis said this showed “complete disregard for the vast differences among First Nations languages, cultures, and practices”.
Oliver said he and his publishers had decided to withdraw the book from sale around the world.
A statement from Penguin Random House UK added: “It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion, and we must learn from that.”
Natsiec said it acknowledged and recognised their apologies and “swift action” in removing the books from sale.
