Adelaide Festival has cancelled Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Writers Week appearance, citing “cultural sensitivity” after the Bondi terrorist attacks, writes Dr Rosemary Sorensen.
YESTERDAY, 8 JANUARY 2026, Adelaide Festival board of directors issued a statement cancelling the appearance of Sydney-based writer and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah at Adelaide Writers Week at the end of February, saying they consider her “past statements” to have compromised her scheduled appearance in the wake of the Bondi murders.
The release on the Festival site states:
‘Whilst we do not suggest in any way that Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s [sic] or her writings have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, given her past statements we have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.’
Unlike the Bendigo Writers Festival cancellation of Abdel-Fattah, which La Trobe University falsely claimed did not target her specifically, this announcement states unambiguously that the ‘board has formed the judgement that we do not wish to proceed’, although no evidence of these “past statements” is provided in support of their decision.
Like Bendigo and other cultural organisations before them, Adelaide Festival has now set up a ‘sub-committee to oversee the ongoing board-led review, and guide decisions about Adelaide Writers Week in the near and longer terms’.
Adelaide Writers Week is curated by Louise Adler, who stood firm in 2023 in the face of a campaign to oust her when she programmed Palestinian American Susan Abulhawa and Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd. A huge audience turnout for these sessions confirmed Adler’s commitment to providing “courageous and brave spaces” for discussion.
Since that stand, the capitulation of board members to defamatory claims that presenters who support Palestine against Israel’s continuing aggression are antisemitic has continued, cancelling the voices of writers, doctors, academics and performers. In the wake of Bondi and the political response capitalising on community grief, the lobbying to ban as hate speech any protest against Israel has ramped up enormously.
It is clear from the Adelaide Festival statement that the rhetoric about “cultural sensitivity” is now fixed on this definition. The board, led by Tracey Whiting (director of a media marketing company) and including former Liberal Senator Amanda Vanstone and councillor/real estate agent Mary Couros, stated that they ‘recognise our request to Dr Abdel-Fattah will be labelled and will cause discomfort and pressure to other participants’.
IA requested clarification about what the Adelaide Festival board mean by claiming their “request” (did Abdel-Fattah have an option not to withdraw) will be “labelled” (what “label” are they anticipating?). No response has yet been received.
Professor Clare Wright, a Jewish Australian like Louise Adler, who was programmed for multiple sessions at Writers Week, withdrew her participation soon after the board announcement. Her resignation sent to Adler called the board’s decision cowardly and short-sighted.
“As a Jewish Australian, I am shocked and insulted that the board could exploit the tragedy of Bondi to weaponise its much-loved and respected literary festival,” Wright, who experienced a similar situation as a curator of Bendigo Writers Festival, said.
Wright added:
“As a writer, I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Dr Abdel-Fattah and her democratic rights and entitlements to discuss her novel on any stage, in any city, in any country in the world to which she has been invited by a Festival Director, without the political interference of a Board of Directors.”
Adelaide Writers Week is scheduled from 28 February to 5 March. Writers programmed to appear include Zadie Smith, Kathy Lette, British-Iranian journalist Christiane Amanpour, historian Mark Mazower (due to talk about what the term “antisemitism” means) and Jacinda Ardern.
Australian writers include Evelyn Araluen, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Bob Carr, Michelle de Kretser, Helen Garner, Melissa Lucashenko, Micaela Sahhar, Paul Daley and Jane Harper.
According to the board statement, a letter will be sent to participants and ‘other key stakeholders’ shortly.
Dr Rosemary Sorensen is an IA columnist, journalist and founder of the Bendigo Writers Festival.
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