Australia’s largest iconic and free literary festival, Adelaide Writers’ Week 2026, has been cancelled following furore over the Board's decision to disinvite the Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah.
The festival’s director quit on Tuesday, and over 180 authors, speakers refused to participate in the festival in protest of the Board's decision and in support of Randa Abdel-Fattah.
The Board had decided to 'disinvite' her, citing 'cultural sensitivities' at this unprecedented time, so soon after an antisemitic mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Who is Randa Abdel-Fattah?
Randa Abdel-Fattah is one of the notable Palestinian advocates in Australia. She has authored over 15 books that have been published in 20 countries. Her books have been translated into over 15 languages all around the globe.
Also, Randa Abdel-Fattah is a Future Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University in Sydney. She primarily researches on various topics covering Islamophobia, critical race theory, Arab and Muslim social movements (especially in Palestine), race and ethnic relations, multiculturalism, youth identities and culture amid geopolitical fear and sociology.
She is also a lawyer and patron of the Racial Justice Centre. Significantly, the Centre is the first Australian Community Legal Service on racial justice.
She is well known for her novel Where the Streets Had a Name, a humorous and heartfelt novel that dwells on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with sensitivity and grace.
Her notable academic works include Islamophobia and Everyday Multiculturalism, which focuses on the problematisations of Muslims amongst Anglo and non-Anglo Australians. Centred on Islamophobia in Australia, the academic book shifts attention from victims to perpetrators.
In the sensational, Coming of Age in the War on Terror, published in 2021, Randa focuses on the Muslim and non-Muslim generation of young adults who have grown up only knowing a world at war on terror and staring at widespread Islamophobia, surveillance and suspicion.
She is also well known for books including When Michael Met Mina, No Sex in the City, Noah's Law, Eleven Words for Love: A Journey Through Arabic Expressions of Love and many more.
She is regarded as a public intellectual with her essays and op-ed writings over various genres being highly appreciated. She is a human rights activist and a community volunteer at various human rights and migrant and refugee resource organisations.
She is a regular guest at writers' festivals.
On Tuesday, the Festival Board apologised to Randa for how the decision was represented. However, Randa rejected it in an X post, criticising the Board's decision to cancel her appearance as a blatant act of 'anti-Palestinian racism'.
She highlighted that even now the Board had apologised for how her removal was presented but not for the 'decision itself'.
The strongly worded X post starts with "To be Palestinian in this world is to confront the violence of erasure, gas-lighting and dehumanisation over and over again."
Notably, Randa was born in Australia to Palestinian and Egyptian parents.