Other prominent Australian writers who have withdrawn include Helen Garner, Michelle de Kretser, Melissa Lucashenko, Hannah Kent, Evelyn Araluen, Jane Caro and Peter Greste, as well as Peter FitzSimons and Kate Halfpenny, writers for this masthead.
Booker Prize-winning Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan, while not on the line-up, has expressed support for those who have boycotted.
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One of the country’s largest and best loved literary festivals, AWW is scheduled to run from February 28 to March 5. However, on Friday the program was missing from its website, with the note: “In respect of the wishes of the writers who have recently indicated their withdrawal from the writers’ week 2026 program, we have temporarily unpublished the list of participants and events while we work through changes.”
Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler has not spoken publicly since the board made its announcement on Thursday. This year is her fourth in the role and many of the writers who have withdrawn paid tribute to her work.
Concerns about the wording of the Adelaide Festival board’s statement – citing the “cultural sensitivity” of a Palestinian-Australian author appearing at the event so soon after the shootings at the iconic Sydney beach last month – were raised by many authors.
Last year this masthead reported on concerns raised by a group called the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism, also known as 5A, about Abdel-Fattah’s previous public commentary ahead of her appearance at the Bendigo Writers Festival. It referenced a series of her social media posts, including ones it asserted had said Zionists had “no claim to cultural safety” and that institutions that considered “fragile feelings of Zionists” were “abhorrent”.
In 2024, she was accused of doxing Jewish creatives and has also been criticised for use of an image of a parachutist under the Palestinian flag following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas this week said he supported the festival board’s decision. “When asked for my opinion, I was happy to make it clear that the state government did not support the inclusion of Dr Abdel-Fattah on the Adelaide Writers’ Week program.”
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