Writers’ Week ‘spin’ under fire
Amid the Adelaide Writers’ Week backlash, a letter has emerged indicating a Jewish writer was not “cancelled” from the speaker lineup by the board in 2024, as the Premier had claimed.
A Jewish writer did not participate in the 2024 Adelaide Writers’ Week program due to “scheduling issues”, a letter revealed after Premier Peter Malinauskas said the Jewish writer was “cancelled”.
In an ABC Radio interview on Friday, Malinauskas said Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah – who was dropped from the Writers’ Week lineup on Thursday – advocated for the removal of New York Times columnist Thomas L Friedman from the 2024 program.
“In that instance the board made a decision to remove that pro-Israeli speaker,” Malinauskas said.
“Fast forward to where we are today and now Dr Abdel-Fattah finds herself [subject] to the same types of advocacy against her. And I think for some good reason.”
Friedman did not participate in the 2024 event “due to last-minute scheduling issues”, according to a letter sent by the Adelaide Festival Board Chair Tracey Whiting on February 9, 2024.
The removal of Abdel-Fattah – a Sydney-born writer and Palestinian advocate – now leaves the Adelaide Writers’ Week festival in tatters, with around 100 speakers withdrawing from the lineup in protest.
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The Adelaide Festival 2025 Impact Report– which includes Writers’ Week – showed the festival generated $62.6 million in economic value to the state, with Writers’ Week 2025 drawing a record-breaking 160,000 attendees.
Former Adelaide Writers’ Week director Jo Dyer told InDaily any attempt to conflate the two writers would seem to be “trying to spin a situation to represent it as something it is not”.
Dyer – a signatory to an open letter calling for Abdel-Fattah’s reinstatement – said requests to exclude people were common, but there was a distinct difference between Friedman and Abdel-Fattah.
“As a director of Writers Week, you get people petitioning you to include and exclude people all the time,” Dyer said.
She said her understanding was “the board supported [Friedman’s] ongoing participation, and he withdrew due to scheduling clashes, that was his decision, not the board’s and not the government’s, and that’s the key difference here”.
“Any attempt to try and conflate them after the fact, to try and justify what they have done by uninviting Randa [Abdel-Fattah] and all of the consequences that immediately and inevitably flow from that is just ridiculous and illogical.”
On Sunday, Malinauskas stood firm that Friedman’s lack of attendance was relevant.
“In the beginning of 2024, Louise Adler, the director of Writers’ Week and the board, received correspondence from Dr Abdel-Fattah herself calling on the cancellation of a pro-Israeli speaker, that Israeli speaker subsequently didn’t present at Adelaide Writers’ Week,” Malinauskas said.
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“Now I think there’s a suggestion that that was a scheduling issue now, call it what you like, after the correspondence from Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, they removed the pro-Jewish Israeli speaker.
“Then fast forward two years, and I think it’s reasonable for the board to apply the same principle.
“I accept that this isn’t a simple matter, I think consistency though is quite of value.”
Malinauskas said he had “never intervened or directed the board, and nor should I, in fact, as a matter of law, I can’t” but that he made it clear he supported the decision to remove Abdel-Fattah.
Dyer, who unsuccessfully ran as an independent candidate for Boothby in the 2022 federal election, said she was “gobsmacked” by the Writers’ Week situation.
“I understand Malinauskas is more a man of sport than letters, but to not have an understanding of the role of the Adelaide Festival in Adelaide Writer’s Week, in the image of his state overseas – we’re called the festival state for God’s sake – and now he has undermined the integrity and the reputation of our premier festival by his actions and it is absolutely extraordinary,” Dyer said.
Abdel-Fattah was one of 10 signatories to a letter to Whiting, Writers’ Week Director Louise Adler and Adelaide Festival CEO Kath Mainland on February 6, 2024, asking them to rescind Friedman’s invitation.
The signatories expressed “grave and urgent concern” about Friedman’s presence after he authored an OpEd in the New York Times that compared various Middle Eastern groups to insect vermin requiring eradication.
“Dehumanising language has the power to legitimise genocide. It has no place in a forum such as Adelaide Writers’ Week,” their letter read.
The New York Times published a second OpEd on February 7 titled ‘The Value of Listening’ where Friedman acknowledged international backlash to the piece.
On February 9, Whiting’s response said Friedman “was programmed to contribute online from New York, however I have been advised that due to last-minute scheduling issues, he is no longer participating in this year’s program”.
“Asking the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week to cancel an artist or writer is an extremely serious request,” the response read.
“We have an international reputation for supporting artistic freedom of expression.”
Adelaide Festival was contacted for comment.
*Editor’s Note: The chair of the Adelaide Festival Tracey Whiting AM is also a director of Solstice Media, publisher of InDaily.
