Adelaide Festival has issued an official apology to Palestinian-Australian author Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah after the board chose to cut her from this year’s lineup.
The Adelaide Festival, as well as Adelaide Writers’ Week, is embroiled in controversy following its decision to nix Dr Abdel-Fattah from this year’s event, which eventually led to the cancellation of Writers’ Week altogether for 2026.
Shortly after it confirmed Dr Abdel-Fattah had been axed from the line-up — citing “cultural sensitivities” in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack and her past comments regarding Israel — members of the board resigned and more than 170 authors and speakers chose to boycott the event.
On Wednesday, Adelaide Festival, in conjunction with Adelaide Writers’ Week, confirmed it had pulled the plug on the 2026 event.
Two days later, Adelaide Festival issued an official public apology to the Palestinian-Australian author, in which it retracted its initial statement explaining why they decided to remove Dr Abdel-Fattah from the lineup.
“We retract that statement,” Adelaide Festival Corporation said before extending an invitation to Dr Abdel-Fattah to next year’s event.
“We have reversed the decision and will reinstate Dr Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to speak at the next Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2027. We apologise to Dr Abdel-Fattah unreservedly for the harm the Adelaide Festival Corporation has caused her.
“Intellectual and artistic freedom is a powerful human right. Our goal is to uphold it, and in this instance, Adelaide Festival Corporation fell well short.”
Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah accepts Adelaide Festival’s apology
In an Instagram post, Dr Abdel-Fattah responded to the apology, stating: “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.”
“I accept this apology as a vindication of our collective solidarity and mobilisation against anti-Palestinian racism, bullying and censorship,” she continued.
“I accept this unreserved apology as acknowledgement of the harm inflicted on our communities.”
Dr Abdel-Fattah added she will “consider” the invitation to appear at Adelaide Writers’ Week 2027. However, she would “be there in a heartbeat if Louise Adler [were] the director again”.
She then went on to highlight how Adelaide Festival’s “episode” regarding the situation spotlights three major issues.
“This episode highlights three urgent matters,” she said.
“The profound lack of racial literacy in our public institutions and the need for urgent anti-racism education that is informed by Indigenous perspectives and frameworks; the need for public institutions to have safeguards against political interference by lobbyists; and the imperative of accountability for those who shirk their governance duties in a failure to understand that their duty of care is to their stakeholders and to the community not groups acting in the interets of external political players.”
Adelaide Festival issues apology to former director of Adelaide Writers’ Week Louise Adler
Alongside its apology to Dr Abdel-Fattah, Adelaide Festival also shared another post apologising to former director of Adelaide Writers’ Week Louise Adler.
Earlier this week, Adler shared a piece on The Guardian revealing why she chose to resign from the position following the board’s decision to axe Dr Abdel-Fattah from the lineup.
“The Adelaide festival board’s decision — despite my strongest opposition — to disinvite the Australian Palestinian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah from 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,” she wrote.
In its statement, shared hours after its apology to Dr Abdel-Fattah, Adelaide Festival apologised to Adler “that the incredible program she had worked hard to curate for 2026 has been cancelled as a result of the events that have unfolded over the last week after the announcement of the decision to rescind the invitation to Dr Abdel-Fattah”.
“We acknowledge the principled stand she took in the extremely difficult decision to resign from her role as Director,” it wrote.
Further in its statement, Adelaide Festival reconfirmed that Adelaide Writers’ Week will not happen this year and that it’s “determined” the event “will rise again”.
It also said South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas and Minister for Arts Andrea Michaels “have taken swift action to appoint a new Board”.
Adelaide Festival’s statement comes after Dr Abdel-Fattah announced she will be launching legal action against Malinauskas for defamation.
The post Adelaide Festival Apologises To Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah & Invites Her To 2027 Writers’ Week appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
