The Adelaide Writers' Week, one of Australia's biggest literary events, has been cancelled following the turmoil caused by organisers' decision to disinvite the Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah.
The decision to cancel comes after almost all of the event's board members resigned in protest on Tuesday. Their decision followed the resignation of AWW director Louise Adler hours earlier who said she could not be “party to silencing writers”.
“The Adelaide Festival board’s decision – despite my strongest opposition – to disinvite Abdel-Fattah from the Adelaide Writers’ Week weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t,” Adler, who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and who was appointed director in 2022, wrote in The Guardian Australia.
The festival's board took the decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah last week, citing “cultural sensitivity” concerns following the Bondi attack in December.
“It would not be culturally sensitive to continue to programme her at this unprecedented time, so soon after Bondi,” they said at the time.
The move prompted widespread criticism and led to more than 180 international and Australian authors to boycott the event, which is part of the Adelaide Festival of Art.
Prominent speakers and authors who pulled out include former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette and Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Adelaide Festival board announced the event, scheduled to begin on February 28, would no longer go ahead.
“Many authors have since announced they will no longer appear at Adelaide Writers’ Week 2026 and it is the Adelaide Festival’s position that the event can no longer go ahead as scheduled for this year. This is a deeply regrettable outcome,” they said.
They also apologised to Abdel-Fattah for how the decision was represented. “This is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” they said.
“As a board we took this action out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event. Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies.”
Fifteen people were killed in last month's shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by ISIS, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle anti-Semitism and state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.
Abdel-Fattah, a Macquarie University academic, had been scheduled to return to the festival this year after appearing on multiple panels in 2023.
She had earlier said the festival's decision to disinvite her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship”.
