Former Adelaide Festival artistic director Rob Brookman AM along with 10 other former Adelaide Festival leaders, has urged the board to reinstate Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, slamming its decision for being influenced by “thought-police, media moguls or brilliantly co-ordinated lobbies”.

The letter said that although reinstating Abdel-Fattah “may be embarrassing” for the festival board it was “the right thing to do” and would “cauterise the growing damage to this much-loved and internationally significant South Australian cultural institution”.

Abdel-Fattah was dropped from the lineup on Thursday, with the board claiming it would not be “culturally sensitive” to program her so soon after the Bondi attacks.

The move was not supported by Writers’ Week staff or director Louise Adler, and has seen nearly 100 writers withdrawing from the high-profile literary festival that was scheduled for February.

The letter called the board decision “a grave mistake which brings the festival and Writers’ Week into disrepute and which may have far-reaching consequences for both the festival and Writers’ Week well into the future”.

“Wickedness thrives in darkness and prejudice thrives in ignorance born of silence. The open discussion of ideas, beliefs, facts and opinion is ultimately the pathway to community cohesion. Silencing and censorship are not,” it reads.

The letter also took issue with the Adelaide Festival board’s decision to create a subcommittee, which would work with government agencies, to review Writers’ Week programming decisions.

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“This can only be read as a public vote of no confidence in Louise Adler AM (and her successors) and undercuts the long-held principle that the board, having done its due diligence when appointing its creative leaders, will support them and their curatorial decisions,” the letter said.

“Whilst we acknowledge the board has ultimate oversight of all facets of the festival and Writers’ Week operations, its first impulse should be to allow the Artistic Director and the Director of Adelaide Writers Week to do their work without heeding the views of thought-police, media moguls or brilliantly co-ordinated lobbies.

“This decision appears as a humiliating rebuke to someone who has led Adelaide Writers’ Week with immense distinction and courage in the face of unjustified hatred.”

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It was signed by Brookman, former Writers’ Week Director Jo Dyer, former Writers’ Week chair Peter Goldsworthy AM, and other former directors and executives including Neil Armfield, Nicolas Heyward, Kath Mainland, Ian Scobie, David Sefton, Jim Sharman, Anthony Steel and Mary Vallentine.

The list of former Adelaide Festival leaders

Brookman said there were “not many” names missing that had been stewards of the festival, and this could be attributed to them not being contactable in the first 24 hours after the decision.

He noted some had “extraneous factors” stopping them from publicly supporting the call, but “None have expressed disagreement with the views in this letter”.

The letter took aim at the current experience makeup of the Adelaide Festival board.

“One can only assume a board that decides to bring in independent experts to help it in its management of programming has a lack of confidence in its own expertise,” the letter said.

“Perhaps this might be more simply remedied by the government appointing even a few people with arts expertise to the board of this great arts institution? We note there are currently none.”

Adler has not yet commented on the board’s decision, but there has been growing speculation she may resign.

In a post to social media platform X, author and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said, “By forcing the Director of Adelaide Writers’ Week, my marvellous, Jewish friend Louise Adler, to resign, they left me with no option other than to tear up my coveted invitation”.

An Adelaide Festival board spokesperson confirmed at the time of writing that Adler had not tendered her resignation.

The spokesperson confirmed the board had received the letter, but no one was available to comment at this time.

The Premier has supported the board’s decision to remove Abdel-Fattah from the lineup, saying on Thursday that under legislation, he was prevented from directing the board, but “when asked for my opinion, I was happy to make it clear that the state government did not support the inclusion of Dr Abdel-Fattah on the Adelaide Writers’ Week program”.

The state government was contacted for comment on the letter.

SA Liberal Leader Ashton Hurn was asked about the letter on Saturday and said she had not seen it but said “on balance, like the Premier, I think the Adelaide Festival has got this one right”.

Hurn urged the writers who had withdrawn to reconsider, saying “the festival is important, it would be a shame if it weren’t to go ahead, but I think when there are taxpayer funds involved we do need to consider carefully what type of content is shared there”.

At the time of writing, group Readers and Writers’ against the Genocide confirmed 90 writers had withdrawn, and expected more to follow.

Writers confirmed to have withdrawn from Adelaide Writers’ Week 2026:

*Editor’s Note: The chair of the Adelaide Festival Tracey Whiting AM is also a director of Solstice Media, publisher of InDaily.