Adelaide writers’ week 2026 has been cancelled after days of turmoil as more than 180 authors and speakers dropped out in protest of the decision to disinvite the Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah.
In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, the Adelaide festival board announced the event, which was scheduled to begin on 28 February, would no longer go ahead. The three remaining members of the festival board have resigned immediately, following the resignations of four others – with the exception of the Adelaide city council representative, whose term expires in February.
The decision to cancel AWW entirely came five days after the festival board announced it had intervened to drop Abdel-Fattah from appearing at the festival, citing “cultural sensitivities” after the attack on the Jewish community in Bondi.
On Tuesday, the board apologised to Abdel-Fattah “for how the decision was represented”.
“[We] reiterate this is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” it added.
“As a board we took this action out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event. Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies,” the board wrote in its statement on Tuesday.
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“Many authors have since announced they will no longer appear at Adelaide Writers’ Week 2026 and it is the Adelaide Festival’s position that the event can no longer go ahead as scheduled for this year. This is a deeply regrettable outcome.
“We recognise and deeply regret the distress this decision has caused to our audience, artists and writers, donors, corporate partners, the government and our own staff and people.
The Adelaide festival board said that with the cancellation of Adelaide writers’ week, a new board would focus on “ensuring a successful Adelaide festival proceeds in a way which safeguards the long and rich cultural legacy of our state but also protects the hardworking staff delivering this important event”.
The statement came hours after the AWW director, Louise Adler, announced her resignation in Guardian Australia, writing: “I cannot be party to silencing writers.”
Adler told Guardian Australia that the cancellation of AWW was “no surprise”.
“It was untenable,” she said. “There were 165 sessions and as of yesterday at about 4pm, only 12 events had a full complement of writers left. Seventy per cent of all the writers had withdrawn. You can’t stitch that back together. All those Australian writers, the internationals, people like Zadie Smith, M Gessen, Jonathan Coe – all of that hard work, gone.
“I am so sorry that this masterclass in poor governance has landed us in this position,” she added.
The absence of AWW in the Adelaide festival calendar has broader financial implications for the state that calls itself “the festival state”.
The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has repeatedly denied that he influenced the board’s decision to remove Abdel-Fattah, though he has said he offered his “clear and plain” opinion to the board and that he supported the decision to disinvite her.
In 2023 Malinauskas stated it would set a “dangerous precedent” if a government determined who was allowed to speak at the festival, after some objected to Adler’s decision to invite the Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa.
“As Malinauskas was entitled to object to Susan Abulhawa in 2023 and not attend her session, in my opinion he was fully entitled to object to Randa Abdel-Fattah and not attend her session,” Adler told Guardian Australia on Tuesday afternoon. “That is one of the joys of democracy.”
Malinauskas has been contacted for comment.
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