Omid Scobie doubles down on race row and insists he didn't name royals at centre of racism claims
29 November 2023, 17:17
Omid Scobie has insisted he is not responsible for the error that has seen two Royal Family members identified for allegedly making comments about the skin colour of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
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Dutch publishers pulped copies of Scobie's new book Endgame after it was pointed out that it identified two individuals - one by name - who was said to have questioned Prince Archie’s skin tone before he was born.
In a new statement today, the author insisted he had only written and edited the English version of the book, so is unable to comment on the Dutch manuscript.
He said: "Having only written and edited the English version of Endgame, I can only comment on that manuscript — which does not name the two individuals who took part in the conversation. I’m happy to hear that the error in the translation of the Dutch edition is being fixed."
It came after a new statement was also issued this afternoon by Xander Uitgevers, which said: "The rectified edition of Eindstrijd by Omid Scobie will be in bookstores on Friday 8 December. Xander Uitgevers temporarily removed the book from sale, due to an error that occurred in the Dutch edition."
Native Dutch speakers have claimed there is no way that a Royal Family member could have been named as the ‘royal racist’ in Omid Scobie’s new book by way of a mistranslation.
Dutch royal journalist Rick Evers said: “It seems as if only the Dutch version has published the person's name who spoke about the skin color of the unborn child.
“Publisher Xander Uitgevers doesn't want to confirm about this specific theme.”He also told Good Morning Britain the first name was “very specific” and the second name was “a little bit vague.”
He said: “Names of two senior royals are mentioned during the book. The first one is very clear and the official way was that it was a translation issue. 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 you 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.”
Last night, Mr Scobie himself denied responsibility for the error, telling Dutch chat show RTL Boulevard: "The book is in several languages, and unfortunately I do not speak Dutch. But if there are translation errors, I'm sure the publishers will have it under control. I wrote and edited the English version. There's never been no version I've produced which has names in it."
