Extract from ABC News
Adelaide Festival is dealing with a crisis over its decision to cancel a Palestinian-Australian author's program. (Supplied: Adelaide Festival)
In short:
Former leaders of the Adelaide Festival have signed an open letter calling on the board to reinstate Randa Abdel-Fattah's event at Adelaide Writers' Week.
The board withdrew the Palestinian-Australian author's invitation due to her past statements, determining it "would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi".
The letter comes as dozens of authors withdraw from the festival in protest, raising questions over the feasibility of the event.
The Adelaide Festival board is under mounting pressure to reinstate Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah's invitation to Adelaide Writers' Week after nearly a dozen former festival leaders labelled her exclusion an "egregious incursion on free speech" that should be reversed "immediately".
The open letter to the board has been signed by 11 former Adelaide Festival leaders.
Signatories include ex-Adelaide Writers' Week director Jo Dyer and chair Peter Goldsworthy, as well as recently departed Adelaide Festival chief executive Kath Mainland.
Former AWW director Jo Dyer is among those listed on the letter critical of the Adelaide Festival board. (Supplied: Adelaide Festival)
Among the other signatories to the letter are former Adelaide Festival artistic directors Rob Brookman, David Sefton, Jim Sharman and Anthony Steel.
Former festival administrators Ian Scobie, Neil Armfield and Mary Vallentine were also listed, as was ex-festival CEO Nicholas Heyward.
It comes as the literary festival deals with a mounting list of author withdrawals over the decision to dis-invite Abdel-Fattah.
Abdel-Fattah was scheduled to talk about her new novel Discipline which is set during Ramadan and follows two characters from very different parts of the Muslim world.
She has also been a vocal critic of Israel.
In a 2024 social media post, she stated: "The goal is decolonisation and the end of this murderous Zionist colony", claiming in an accompanying video that its existence depended on violence against Palestinians.
The Adelaide Festival board announced on Thursday they had dropped Abdel-Fattah's event, arguing that "given her past statements … it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi".
Randa Abdel-Fattah has strongly criticised the festival decision to dis-invite her. (Supplied: Bendigo Writers Festival)
The decision was backed by Premier Peter Malinauskas who said Abdel-Fattah's had "advocated in writing explicitly against the cultural safety of those who believe in Zionism".
Abel-Fattah described the decision as an "an extremely racist and obscene attempt to associate me with an atrocity".
It has also triggered a significant boycott of the festival by dozens of previously scheduled writers including Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko.
Others to pull out include Helen Garner, Trent Dalton, Jane Caro, Peter Fitzsimons, Evelyn Araluen, Amy McQuire, Peter Greste and Bernadette Brennan, as well as former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Pulitzer Prize-winner Percival Everett.
Adelaide Writers' Week attracts thousands of people to the city's northern parklands over February and March. (Supplied: Adelaide Festival)
In their open letter, the 11 former festival leaders labelled the Adelaide Festival board's decision "a grave mistake" which may have "far-reaching consequences for both the festival and Writers' Week well into the future".
"There is one remedy for the justified public outcry at this egregious incursion on free speech and the damaging series of withdrawals it has caused," the letter states.
"We call upon the board to reinstate Dr Abdel-Fattah's invitation to the 2026 Adelaide Writers' Week immediately.
"An about-face may be embarrassing but it is both the right thing to do and will cauterise the growing damage to this much loved and internationally significant South Australian cultural institution."
The ABC contacted Adelaide Festival for a response to the open letter, which contained a number of other criticisms.
This included noting the lack of artists on the festival's board and describing their stated commitment to "promoting community cohesion" as "mere double-speak".
"Rather than resolving division, the Board's decision has and will create it," the letter states.
Questions over event's future
On Friday, Jewish Community Council of South Australia public and government liaison Norman Schueler said the council sent a letter to the Adelaide Festival board "a few days ago" requesting the removal of Abdel-Fattah from the Writers' Week line-up.
"The board [has] completely, appropriately disinvited her and personally, I'm very, very surprised it appears a large cohort of people have decided to support her," Mr Schueler said.
The Adelaide Festival board, chaired by marketing executive Tracey Whiting, is yet to comment since its Thursday decision.
In a Facebook post on Friday signed "Team AF", the Adelaide Festival said it would be turning off its social media comments over the weekend because staff were unable to monitor them.
"Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers' Week staff thank you all for your commentary these past couple of days," the post said.
"Please be assured that all concerns are being collated and communicated back to the Adelaide Festival Board."
The Writers' Week website has also "temporarily unpublished" its list of participants and events "in respect of the writers who have recently indicated their withdrawal".
The Adelaide Writers' Week has pulled its lineup from its website amid the crisis. (Supplied)
Writers' Week is scheduled to run from February 28 to March 5, but it is unclear what form the event will take given the number of author and sponsorship withdrawals.
Asked if it was possible the literary festival would be cancelled, SA Trade and Investment Minister Joe Szakacs said: "I haven't seen or heard nothing in respect to that, I've got no reason to think that's even being contemplated."
He also rejected suggestions the fallout had damaged South Australia's reputation as "the festival state".
"It is entirely up to writers and artists to charge their own way forward," he said.
"The board of the Adelaide Writers' Week is independent by law, and the last thing that anybody would expect of government is to be intervening into the artistic decision of independent legal boards."
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