Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah has told a New South Wales writers’ festival that arts and literature can be spaces for political expression, amid push back from the state’s premier on her inclusion at the event.
Two sessions featuring Dr Abdel-Fattah at the Newcastle Writers Festival (NWF) on Saturday sold out, with a third to be held on Sunday.
She was controversially uninvited from the Adelaide Writers’ Festival, which was slated for January, with the then-board claiming it would be “culturally insensitive” for her to appear due to past statements she had made regarding Israel and Zionism.
Her removal from that program led to other writers refusing to appear at the festival, the eventual cancellation of the event, and resignation of the board.
“We are at a writers’ festival, and yet we still get this push back time and time again that writing should not be political, that arts festivals should be neutral and not political,” she told the NWF audience.
“I always go back to this beautiful poem [by Marwan Makhoul], who said ‘in order for my writing to not be political I must listen to the birds sing, and in order for me to hear the birds sing, the war planes must stop’.
“For me, it encapsulates everything that it means to be a writer.”
Two sessions featuring Dr Abdel-Fattah, held on Saturday, sold out at Newcastle’s City Hall. (ABC News)
Dr Abdel-Fattah gave permission for media outlets to access the opening 15 minutes of her first session at NWF, which focused on her latest book, and did not carry out any media interviews as part of her appearance.
More appearances scheduled
Earlier this year Dr Abdel-Fattah appeared at ‘Constellations’, an Adelaide literary organised as an alternative to the cancelled-event, where she spoke in conversation with former Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler.
Last month, when Dr Abdel-Fattah was invited to the NWF, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns labelled her inclusion “crazy”.
Author Randa Abdel-Fattah confirmed to attend Newcastle Writers Festival
“I think they are crazy to invite that author when you think about how divisive it is, and how difficult it would be for the organisation as a result of the notoriety,” he said at the time.
Despite his disagreement with her inclusion, Mr Minns said he did not intervene or write to Newcastle Writers’ Festival organisers about the matter.
Dr Abdel-Fattah will appear at the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May, a move that the Australian Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin called a “deliberate provocation and a middle finger to the Jewish community”.