Television and investigative journalism Van de Keuken was born to strongly left-wing parents (his father was documentary filmmaker
Johan van der Keuken), and referred to the environment in his parents' house as a "secular Calvinism". He became known for the program
Keuringsdienst van waarde, which focused on problems in food production, Research for this show led him to focus on chocolate. He sought publicity and a verdict by the courts on slave labor by eating
chocolate bars made with slave labor, and asking to be arrested as an accessory to the crime of employing child slaves. In the end he created what he called "slave-free chocolate", manufactured following
fair trade conventions, under the brand
Tony's Chocolonely. He made other investigative journalistic productions such as
De slag om Brussel and
De slag om Nederland, and in 2014 published a collection of articles on food, food production, and
certification marks. Since 2015 he has presented
De Monitor, an investigative journalism program. deals with growing up in
Amsterdam and attending public schools; the author's parents made a point of sending him to schools attended by lower-class children, where he felt like an outsider and was used as a political statement. Johan van der Keuken is not mentioned by name, though the first-person narrator is called "Teun".
Vrij Nederland called the novel "semi-autobiographical" and qualified it as a
coming of age novel, in which the narrator develops from being deeply ashamed of his parents and particularly his father to appreciating him as a man with good intentions. ==References==