Palestinian-Australian author and advocate Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah will be featured at this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival.
It comes after the former board of the Adelaide Festival uninvited her from its Writers’ Week.
Backlash to that decision led to the Adelaide Writers’ Week being cancelled.
Sydney Writers’ Festival CEO Brooke Webb said their event is “not in the business of cancelling or censoring writers.”
Context
Dr Abdel-Fattah is a Palestinian-Australian lawyer, author, and advocate. She has published 12 books and is a researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney, specialising in areas including Islamophobia and Palestine.
In January, the Adelaide Festival board removed Dr Abdel-Fattah from the lineup of the Adelaide Festival. It said “it would be culturally insensitive to allow her to participate” in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.
Dr Abdel-Fattah has been a vocal critic of Israel and has been accused of antisemitism.
At the end of 2024, she wrote on social media: “May 2025 be the end of Israel”. She also wrote: “if you are a Zionist, you have no claim or right to cultural safety”.
She has since said to the ABC: “My post made clear that I oppose the espousing of Zionist ideology [but] NEVER the unsafety of Jews”.
Dr Abdel-Fattah said the decision to pull her from the festival was a “blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism”.
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Other authors due to speak at Adelaide Writers’ Week withdrew in response to her removal. The festival then cancelled Writers’ Week, saying it was no longer viable.
SWF
Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) is an annual event to celebrate literature and ideas in Australia.
This year, it is running from 17-24 May, with at least 100,000 people expected to attend.
On Wednesday, the festival confirmed Dr Abdel-Fattah will feature in two of its 200+ events.
SWF CEO Brooke Webb said: “We think a writers festival provides a rare and welcome opportunity for readers and writers to come together for nuanced conversations about complex and sometimes difficult topics.”
Dr Abdel-Fattah said of the announcement: “In the midst of suffocating repression and racism, celebrate the wins. May we all remain undisciplined.”
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told ABC News the decision is a “deliberate provocation and a middle finger to the Jewish community”.
It comes after the Newcastle Writers’ Festival also invited Dr Abdel-Fattah to speak earlier this month, which NSW Premier Chris Minns criticised at the time.
He said: “I think they are crazy to invite that author when you think about how divisive it is.”
