Adelaide Writers’ Week on the brink following author boycotts
13 January 2026
Hannah Story, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):
Authors including Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko will boycott Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) to protest the cancellation of an event featuring Palestinian Australian author, lawyer and activist Randa Abdel-Fattah. Other authors who have withdrawn from the festival include Peter Greste, Yanis Varoufakis, Evelyn Araluen, Amy McQuire, Clare Wright, Chelsea Watego, Bernadette Brennan and Amy Remeikis.
The boycott is in response to the removal of Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from the 2026 event, scheduled to start at the end of February.
Organisers felt Abdel-Fattah’s presence would “not be culturally sensitive” in the wake of last December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which targeted the Jewish community.
Although organisers say Abdel-Fattah’s writing played no part whatsoever in the atrocity, they were concerned by her long standing anti-Israel sentiments.
Abdel-Fattah has asked organisers to reinstate her, while more writers are threatening to withdraw from the event if this does not happen.
Update: Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) 2026 event has been cancelled. The Adelaide Festival, of which AAW is a part, will however still run.
RELATED CONTENT
Australia, Australian literature, current affairs, events, writers