The Adelaide Festival Board has released a statement on its removal of writer and Palestinian advocate Randa Abdel-Fattah from the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week program, citing concerns of “cultural sensitivity” after a review of operations following the Bondi terror attack. Abdel-Fatteh was scheduled to discuss her new novel Discipline, marking a return to the festival lineup after appearances in 2023.

Randa Abdel-Fattah. Photo courtesy of Macquarie University

“Whilst we do not suggest in any way that Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s or her writings have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, given her past statements we have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi,” said the Board.

Abdel-Fattah described the move as “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship and a despicable attempt to associate me with the Bondi massacre,” in a statement released on Instagram.

“What makes this so egregiously racist is that the Adelaide Writers Festival Board has stripped me of my humanity and agency … the Board’s reasoning suggests that my mere presence is ‘culturally insensitive’; that I, a Palestinian who had nothing to do with the Bondi atrocity, am somehow a trigger for those in mourning.”

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has voiced support for the decision. At the same time, several prominent authors have withdrawn from the festival in response including British author Zadie Smith, Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko, Hannah Kent, Hannah Ferguson, Jane Caro, Chelsea Watego, Peter Fitzsimons, Trent Dalton and Robbie Arnott. The Australia Institute has also withdrawn its support from the event. ABC representatives David Marr and Jonathan Green will no longer appear.

“I am appalled by the Adelaide Festival Board’s decision to remove Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from this year’s program,” wrote Hannah Kent on Instagram. “It is a gross act of discrimination and censorship I can in no way agree with, and I will therefore be withdrawing from this year’s [program] unless Dr Abdel-Fattah’s place in the program is reinstated.”

In December 2025, Abdel-Fattah’s suspended Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship was reinstated after she was cleared of any wrongdoing, following an investigation into conflicts of interest. She was awarded the Fellowship in 2022.

In 2023, Adelaide Writers’ Week Festival lost sponsors PwC Australia, MinterEllison, and Capgemini in response to its programming of Palestinian authors Susan Abulhawa and Mohammed El-Kurd, both of whom had posted anti-Israeli and anti-Ukraine comments on social media.

The Adelaide Writers’ Week website has been unpublished “while we work through changes to the website.”