‘I accept this apology as acknowledgement of our right to speak publicly and truthfully about the atrocities that have been committed against the Palestinian people,” Randa Abdel-Fattah
Australia’s premier Adelaide Festival has apologised to Palestinian-Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah for cancelling her scheduled appearance at the 2026 Writers’ Week.
The decision led to 180 other writers withdrawing from the event, prompting resignations from the Festival’s board of directors. Now, the board has asked the Palestinian activist and author to consider attending next year’s event.
The award-winning author of 11 novels, said while she accepted the board’s apology, she would consider the invitation to participate next year.
The organisers of Adelaide Writers’ Week said on Tuesday that the event could no longer go ahead following a wave of speaker withdrawals and board resignations prompted by the removal of Abdel-Fattah from the lineup.
On Thursday, the board said it was retracting its earlier decision to exclude Abdel-Fattah “from participating as a speaker at Adelaide Writers’ Week this year”.
“We have reversed the decision and will reinstate Dr Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to speak at the next Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2027,” the board said in a statement, apologising “unreservedly for the harm” it had caused to her.
“Intellectual and artistic freedom is a powerful human right,” the board said, acknowledging that it had fallen “well short” of upholding that right.
“I accept this apology as acknowledgement of our right to speak publicly and truthfully about the atrocities that have been committed against the Palestinian people” and “a vindication of our collective solidarity and mobilisation against anti-Palestinian racism, bullying and censorship”, she said in a statement shared on social media.
Abdel-Fattah, who is also a lawyer and sociologist, said she would agree to appear as a speaker “in a heartbeat” if Louise Adler, who resigned as the director of Adelaide Writers’ Week in protest at the board’s decision, “was the director again”, but said she had not yet decided if she would accept the invitation to appear next year.
Abdel-Fattah also said the board’s initial decision to cancel her participation highlighted problems, including “the need for urgent antiracism education” and “the need for public institutions to have safeguards against political interference by lobbyists”.
Thursday’s apology came a day after the board said in a separate statement that this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week “can no longer go ahead as scheduled” after “many authors … announced they will no longer appear.”
Adler, who resigned as director of the writers’ week after the board overrode her decision to invite Abdel-Fattah, said this week that at least 180 authors had withdrawn from this year’s programme in protest.
The authors who said they would no longer participate included prominent international and Australian writers, such as Zadie Smith, M Gessen, Yanis Varoufakis, and Helen Garner, as well as former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.