First Nations authored literature continues to excite and educate Australian readers. Non-Indigenous writers are grappling with how to craft inclusive fiction that does not impinge on Indigenous knowledge, beliefs and rights of self-representation. Inclusive fiction is central to a representative literary landscape. In settler colonies such as Australia, this comes with the danger of cultural appropriation.
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has brought this issue into the limelight with his attempt at crafting a First Nations Australian character in a children’s novel, which has just been withdrawn from sale by his publisher, Random House UK. Oliver and his publisher have confirmed there was no consultation with any Indigenous organisation, community or individual before the book was published.
The book, Billy and the Epic Escape, features a First Nations Australian girl living in foster care, who is stolen and taken across the world by the novel’s villain. She tells the English children who rescue her she can read people’s minds and communicate with plants and animals because “that’s the indigenous way” and uses words from the Gamilaraay people of New South Wales and Queensland, despite telling them she is from Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Oliver has since apologised.
