The Adelaide Festival Corporation, which oversees Adelaide Writers’ Week, has apologised to Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah and says she will be invited to speak at its next event in 2027.
This year’s Writers’ Week was cancelled after more than 180 authors and participants withdrew from the event.
That followed a decision to cancel an invitation to Abdel-Fattah over her commentary on Israel and Zionism.
After a new Adelaide Festival board was installed this week, the corporation said it had reversed its previous decision to exclude Abdel-Fattah and retracted its previous statement.
“We apologise to Dr Abdel-Fattah unreservedly for the harm the Adelaide Festival Corporation has caused her,” it said.
Adelaide Writers’ Week was cancelled earlier this week. (ABC News)
“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.”
In a post on social media, Abdel-Fattah said she accepted the apology and would consider the board’s invitation to participate in the 2027 festival “at the appropriate time but would be there in a heartbeat if Louise Adler was the director again”.
She also said while the statement acknowledged the harm done, it was “not a quick fix to repair the damage and injury inflicted”.
Judy Potter was appointed chair of the Adelaide Festival board earlier this week. (ABC News)
In a further statement, new Adelaide Festival Board chair Judy Potter said it also wished to apologise to Ms Adler “that the incredible Adelaide Writers’ Week program she had worked so 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”.
Ms Adler resigned as director of Adelaide Writers’ Week on Tuesday. Â
“We acknowledge the principled stand she took in the extremely difficult decision to resign from her role as Director,” she said.
“Louise is a revered figure of Australian literature who we hold in the highest regard.”
Ms Potter also advised that a previous decision to establish a subcommittee of the board to review Adelaide Writers’ Week operational decisions had also been rescinded.
Louise Adler resigned as the director of Adelaide Writers’ Week earlier this week. (Supplied: Adelaide Festival)
Writers’ Week will ‘rise again’, says board chair
Ms Potter said the board was determined that Writers’ Week would “rise again”.
“And our energies will be directed to that mission, she said.
“We understand that many in the community are urging reconsideration of the cancellation of Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2026.
“While we fervently share that desire, our informed assessment of the situation is that it is simply no longer viable for it to proceed.”
Asked at a press conference on Thursday afternoon about why the event could not go ahead, Ms Potter said that “by the time these things were resolved” some artists had made other arrangements.
“They were not going to come back until there was an apology, but the reality is whilst there is an apology now, international artists and others have cancelled and made other arrangements,” she said.
“And we wanted the Writers’ Week to go ahead at the level and position it was.”
Ms Potter also said the board would look at what had occurred “in a learning way” once this year’s festival had finished.
“Everything has to be looked at as a learning opportunity to improve,” she said.
Julian Hobba says the Festival team is “grateful for the patience of many Festival artists who have been deeply concerned by the events of the last week”. (Supplied)
Adelaide Festival chief executive Julian Hobba said the team and new board were now “fully focused on and committed to the successful presentation of Adelaide Festival 2026”.
He also said they acknowledged and were grateful that SA Premier Peter Malinauskas and Arts Minister Andrea Michaels had “taken swift action to appoint a new board enabling us to rapidly reset”.
“We also appreciate the premier’s consistent position that the curatorial choices of Adelaide Festival, including Adelaide Writers’ Week, are at the discretion of the organisation,” he said.
Speaking on Thursday afternoon, Mr Hobba said the “sincere apology” was issued today “in good faith” that “retracted the statements that were of most concern” for Abdel-Fattah.
“We recognise the harm of the situation and what it’s done to her,” he said.
“I’m sorry that she won’t get to come to talk to an Adelaide literary audience about the novel that she’s written.
“So, that was the spirit and the intent of the apology and that’s what drove the impulse to apologise.”