University of Queensland Press cancels children’s book over illustrator’s post on ‘Zionist framing’ of Bondi attack

An Australian publishing house has cancelled the publication of a children’s book by an award-winning Indigenous poet over comments the book’s illustrator made about the victims of the Bondi beach terror attack, whom he called “affluent beneficiaries of imperialism”.

University of Queenslandsaid on Wednesday its publishing house would not proceed with the publication of Bila, A River Cycle, written by Jazz Money and illustrated by Matt Chun, and was considering “recycling options” for already printed copies.

The university said the decision was due to comments Chun made in an online article that “do not align with the University’s policies and values including in light of its adopted definition of antisemitism”.

In response to the decision – first reported on the independent news site Lamestream – several authors said they would terminate their contracts or refuse to work with the Brisbane publisher in future, but the Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies welcomed the move, saying the university had taken a stand against “hate, vitriol and grotesque propaganda”.

Those authors include the Goorie and Koori poet Evelyn Araluen, the high-profile Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah and the award-winning First Nations author Melissa Lucashenko, who called the move an “egregious decision”.

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In January, University of Queensland Press paused publishing the book – described as “a lyrical journey through Country” which tells the story of a river that takes on human form – while it considered Chun’s comments.

Chun published a Substack post titled “We don’t mourn fascists” on 1 January about the Bondi beach attack, deploring what he called the “liberal capitulation” to the “Zionist framing” that “violence that impacts the affluent beneficiaries and perpetrators of imperialism is deserving of special attention, elaborate memorials, rolling media coverage, and international headlines”.

New South Wales police confirmed on Thursday that the Engagement and Hate Crime Unit was investigating Chun’s post.

“Whiteness, Jewishness, and the backdrop of Bondi Beach were enough to bestow every person killed with default innocence and virtue,” Chun wrote. “White, Jewish settler victimhood demands exceptional, heightened grief.

“‘We don’t mourn fascists’ has been a popular refrain from the Australian left. How quickly this slogan is discarded when the idyll of colonial Bondi is ruptured.”

Fifteen people were killed in the terror attack on 14 December, including a child aged 10.

The president of the Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies, Jason Steinberg, commended UQP’s move.

“Publishing a book, no matter the topic, whose illustrator [expresses views such as Chun’s] would be unacceptable,” he said.

“It is exactly these types of sentiments expressed by a range of individuals that have enabled hate and falsehoods to fester in Australia. This creates a putrid environment for the worst terrorist attack to occur on Australian shores, specifically targeting Jewish Australians.”

Chun told Guardian Australia – which he referred to as a “liberal-imperialist” publication in his post – that he stood by “every word” of the article, “which was deeply considered and written in close consultation with Jewish comrades”.

“It will stand the test of history,” he wrote in an email. “UQP have capitulated to Zionist lobbyism and sustained pressure from pro-Israel media. We should be both disgusted and unsurprised by this.”

In January The Australian described Chun’s comments as a “tirade against Jews and Zionists”.

The bookseller Dymocks pulled other works by Chun from its shelves in January.

Money said she believed thousands of copies of Bila, A River Cycle had been printed. She said Wednesday’sdecision would damage her financially and reputationally, but she was most concerned about the “really disturbing precedent it set”.

“It sucks for me that my book is getting cancelled,” she said. “But the thing to me that is most pressing about this whole story is the precedent that this sets: that even a kids’ book about a river written by an Aboriginal person on Aboriginal land can be destroyed because of a right wing media campaign.”

A UQ spokesperson denied the university was “pulping” Money’s book, saying “the books remain in storage while the University considers recycling options”.

“The University regrets the impact this matter has on … Jazz Money,” the spokesperson said. “We have enormous respect for Jazz and her work and we would welcome the opportunity to work with Jazz again in the future.”

Jazz Money, the author of Bila, A River Cycle, said the University of Queensland Press decision would damage her financially and reputationally

But Money said she no longer trusted the publisher she has worked with since 2020, when she won the David Unaipon award for an emerging Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writer.

The poet said the publisher’s reason for cancelling the book which they had worked on for about five years was “disingenuous” as Bila had “not got anything to do with antisemitism or Israel or Palestine”.

“The book is about a river,” she said. “It’s a beautiful book that is so gentle and lovely – and it wasn’t written by Matt. It was written by me.”

Lucashenko, the author of ​​the multi-award-winning novel Edenglassie, said she was getting legal advice about her upcoming book Blood on the Tiles, which is set to be published by UQP next year.

“It is not only silencing an Indigenous author, it’s caving in to the Murdoch press,” said the First Nations writer, who has been working with the publishing house for 30 years. “And it makes me want to put an ancestral curse on the lot of them.”

Bila, A River Cycle by author Jazz Money and illustrator Matt Chun. Photograph: https://www.qbd.com.au/

Araluen said she had written to UQP on Wednesday, saying its “shameful and abhorrent decision to pulp the work of a fellow Aboriginal storyteller without due process, communication, respect or consideration” had caused her to terminate of her relationship with the publisher immediately.

She told Guardian Australia that would involve rescinding a contract on an upcoming nonfiction book and paying back a $2,500 advance.

“For these books to be pulped is so egregiously culturally violent and wasteful and disrespectful and has absolutely demonstrated that the University of Queensland Press does not see our writers and our stories as people or as living things, that one has to be responsible to, but actually just sees us as commodities,” she said.

Abdel-Fattah said UQP had “chosen to indulge a coordinated outrage campaign designed to intimidate, delegitimise, and chill dissent”, saying that as a result Discipline would be her “first and last book with them”.

Other writers to terminate their relationship with the publisher on Wednesday included Natalia Figueroa Barroso and Sara M Saleh.