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British author denies including the names of King Charles and Kate Middleton in new controversial Royal book
The race row stems from questions about the skin colour of Prince Harry and Meghan’s son before he was born.
King Charles and Kate Middleton have been named in a new royal book. Pictures: Photo by Chris Jackson. Max Mumby/(ndigo)/Gett Images
British author who is also a journalist Omid Scobie has refused to apologise for what he terms a ‘translation error’ in his book Endgame, after the Dutch translated version of the hard copy identified two royals at the centre of a racism row.
In the book that was first released in the Netherlands, King Charles and the Kate Middleton were named as the royals accused of raising questions about the skin colour of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s son before he was born.
“The buck doesn’t stop with me because there are irresponsible people in this country who’ve broken the law and repeated names that should never have been repeated, should never have been named,” said the journalist who covers the royals on BBC’s Newsnight.
“The book I edited and signed off on did not have names in it.”
Endgame was released on Tuesday in the Netherlands but was pulled from the stores forcefully due to the “errors” in it. The Dutch translation is titled Eindstrijd.
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Scobie told the BBC he “found out on social media” about controversy surrounding the Dutch translation, and said he was “looking forward to finding out more”.
But the Dutch translator of the book, Saskia Peeters, refuted claims she had added the names of the two royals in the Dutch translation of her own accord and said they were there “in black and white”.
Royal reporter Rick Evers questioned how it is possible to mistranslate a name, and suggested they were included in an earlier manuscript.
He told Good Morning Britain: “There are some debates about how these passages were stated in the book. I would say how could you translate a name wrong?
“I got through the book with a colleague of yours and we saw some passages were missing in the English version. Like a sentence, five sentences between the first and the third part that was in the Dutch version.
“So something has been erased during the work that has been done for the book.”
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Kate and William play it cool
The Prince and Princess of Wales ignored questions about the controversy surrounding Endgame. The pair was attending the Royal Variety Performance on Thursday night and as they exited their car, reporters shouted questions at them related to Scobie’s new book.
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