Authors withdraw from festival after Palestinian Australian author dropped
SOURCE:ABC Australia|BY:Hannah Story
After Randa Abdel-Fattah was dropped from Adelaide Writers' Week by the Adelaide Festival Board, a slew of authors, including Michelle de Kretser, have withdrawn from the event.
Authors including Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko will boycott Adelaide Writers' Week (AWW) to protest the cancellation of an event featuring Palestinian Australian author, lawyer and activist Randa Abdel-Fattah.
Other authors who have withdrawn from the festival include Peter Greste, Yanis Varoufakis, Evelyn Araluen, Amy McQuire, Clare Wright, Chelsea Watego, Bernadette Brennan and Amy Remeikis.
Stella and Miles Franklin-winning author Michelle de Kretser is among almost a dozen writers to pull out of AWW in support of Randa Abdel-Fattah. (ABC Arts: Teresa Tan)
Araluen described the decision of the board to cancel Abdel-Fattah's appearance at the festival as a "devastating betrayal of the democratic politics that have historically defined this festival".
"I refuse to participate in this spectacle of censorship."
Robbie Arnott has also said he will withdraw from the festival unless Abdel-Fattah is reinstated, and independent think tank The Australia Institute has pulled its support for the event.
Abdel-Fattah was scheduled to talk about her new novel, Discipline, which is set during Ramadan and follows two characters from very different parts of the Muslim world.
She was dropped by the Adelaide Festival Board, chaired by marketing executive Tracey Whiting. The board includes journalist Daniela Ritorto and Adelaide Airport managing director Brenton Cox, but no artists, following the departure of choreographer Stephen Page.
Adelaide Writers' Week is part of Adelaide Festival, but is led by director Louise Adler.
In a statement, the board said it would "not be culturally sensitive to continue to program [Abdel-Fattah] at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi", referencing the Bondi Beach shooting, in December.
The board added it was currently reviewing the festival's operations in light of the "current national community context" and the festival's role in "promoting community cohesion".
It has established a subcommittee to oversee the review and guide decision-making about AWW.
"This suite of decisions has been taken with the genuine view that they provide the best opportunity for the success and support of the Adelaide Festival, for Adelaide Writers' Week and the communities we seek to serve and engage," the board wrote.
"We understand these board decisions will likely be disappointing to many in our community.
"We also recognise our request to Dr Abdel-Fattah will be labelled and will cause discomfort and pressure to other participants.
"These decisions have not been taken lightly."
A South Australian government spokesperson said: "The premier supports the decision of the Adelaide Festival Board."
Premier Peter Malinauskas also said in a statement that his government did not support the inclusion of Abdel-Fattah in the writers' festival line-up.
On Instagram, Abdel-Fattah described her axing as a "blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship and a despicable attempt to associate me with the Bondi massacre".
"What makes this so egregiously racist is that the Adelaide Writers Festival Board [sic] has stripped me of my humanity and agency, reducing me to an object onto which others can project their racist fears and smears," she wrote.
She wrote that she expected writers would withdraw from the festival in protest, as more than 50 participants did from the Bendigo Writers Festival in August amid censorship concerns.
"In the end, the Adelaide Writers Festival [sic] will be left with panellists who demonise a Palestinian out of one side of their mouths while waxing lyrical about freedom of speech from the other," Abdel-Fattah wrote.
In December, a suspension placed by the Australian Research Council on an $870,000 grant to Abdel-Fattah was lifted, following a 10-month investigation into expenditure and potential conflicts of interest.
Defending authors at writers' week
In 2023, law firm and major sponsor MinterEllison withdrew its support for Adelaide Festival because of concern about the potential for "racist or anti-Semitic commentary" from two writers scheduled to speak at AWW: Palestinian American novelist and scholar Susan Abulhawa and Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd.
That year, Adler and the festival's then-chief executive Kath Mainland defended the decision to program the authors.
In a statement, Mainland said: "Adelaide Festival places a focus on providing an opportunity for civil dialogue and the contest of ideas.
"We fervently believe in the importance of enabling and facilitating the freedom to express ideas that might be challenging or confronting, whilst always remaining respectful."
Adler told ABC Radio Adelaide the writers' festival needed to protect the principle of inviting writers to participate "because we believe their work as writers is important and interesting".
Speaking on ABC Radio National's Arts in 30 in April last year, Adler said the influence of artists on arts boards has lessened over the last two decades.
At the same time, she said people from the commercial sector have joined those same boards, bringing with them an understanding of risk management.
As organisations rely more on external funding, it's only "natural" that boards would become more "cautious", she said, "and it's counterproductive and it's been devastating".
"Recognising and respecting the independence of the artistic judgement and the curatorial judgement should be fundamental," Louise Adler said in 2025. (Supplied: Adelaide Festival)
"The consequences of programming and material that private individuals don't like or organisations don't like, or interest groups object to, are serious now."
Adelaide Writers' Week is scheduled to start on February 27.