Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf spoke of ‘Bridget Jones revisited’ in a damning review, saying that the book does the Princess little favours. The writers promised to tell all about Máxima Zorreguieta’s youth and upbringing, but they found most doors closed. Friends and relatives chose not to cooperate, which led the authors to fill in the gaps themselves - with invented conversations between Máxima and her parents for instance. Álvarez Guerrero and Ferrari ran into more trouble when they ventured into the to them unknown territory of the Netherlands. They had to rely on sketchy translations from Dutch into Spanish or English, used questionable sources (Dutch gossip magazines) and showed little understanding of the intricate workings of a monarchy. "A festival of errors, not facts", is how one newspaper put it. There are also erroneous assumptions, about Máxima’s wedding contract for instance. It does not stipulate that she has to give the monarchy an heir, nor does it arrange for the names of the royal children, as claimed. Queen Beatrix did not choose the Valentino wedding dress, over Máxima’s objections, nor did the Prime Minister decide on the wedding date. Her former landlord in New York is even elevated to her ‘fiancé’ - although that could be a mistranslation of the Spanish 'novio'. The Dutch editor clearly botched his job, and the many mistakes make it hard to take the rest of the book serious. The Dutch journalist asked to accept the first copy, Wednesday in Buenos Aires, even cancelled his trip to Argentina. © HJ A quick scan of the book about Princess Máxima of the Netherlands which will be published this week in Argentina reveals that the Argentinean authors Gonzalo Álvarez Guerrero and Soledad Ferrari did not care too much about the facts. In a review of ‘Máxima, a royal history’ the Netherlands Press Association (GPD) counted well over 50 factual errors.
* Argentina's newspaper La Nación published an extract of the book on Sunday.
The book, details of which were published in Holland ahead of its publication in Argentina, allocates Prince Willem-Alexander twice the wrong residence, lets the royals use the wrong boats and cars, gets dates and people mixed up, has a prince abdicate a throne he never occupied, and even gets the name of Máxima’s college in Argentina wrong. (See list of errors in Dutch: Royalblog Books Etc)
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