Randa Abdel-Fattah Is Headlining The 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival
Image: Palestinian-Australian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah. Supplied Maquarie University
Only weeks after Palestinian-Australian academic and author Randa Abdel-Fattah was removed from the Adelaide Writers’ Week lineup, triggering the cancellation of the festival and mass resignation of the board, The Sydney Writers’ Festival has announced she will headline their 2026 program.
The inclusion of Abdel-Fattah in the lineup is sure to be widely commented upon – only recently NSW Premier Chris Minns described her appearance in the regional Newcastle Writers Festival a “real head-scratcher”. However her solo session at the Newcastle Writers festival is sold out, and a second event has been scheduled.
Randa Abdel-Fattah made headlines after the Adelaide Writers’ Week board deemed her “too culturally sensitive” following the Bondi Beach tragedy and removed her from the festival, which then led to the resignation of director Louise Adler and a boycott by 180 writers, forcing the event’s total cancellation.
This occurred only a few months after the Bendigo Writers Festival was decimated after more than 50 authors, academics and participants boycotted the August event, after a speaker code was implemented that required festival attendees to censor their opinions about the genocide occurring in Gaza. The code was implemented after the festival received concerns from a lobby group about the inclusion of Randa Abdel-Fattah. The festival will not be running again next year.
The Sydney Writers’ Festival issued the invitation to Abdel-Fattah in October last year for her adult fiction debut, Discipline. Discipline is set in Sydney in 2021 and follows two Palestinians who confront questions of silence over the bombardment of Gaza, and about media censorship around the conflict. She will feature in two sessions at SWF, in a program of around 200 events.
“Randa is a significant Sydney writer with a new book that speaks to the here and now,” The Sydney Writers’ Festival artistic director Ann Mossop said. “Sydney is a highly diverse city, and we aim to reflect the many and varied communities of writers and readers in our program.”
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, SWF has informed key backers and donors that it will not rescind its invitation to Randa Abdel-Fattah, despite what is sure to be considerable pressure.
“A festival like ours, which holds freedom of expression as a core value, is not going to be in the business of cancelling or censoring writers,” festival chief executive Brooke Webb said. “Readers can make up their own minds about what they would like to attend. We know that without writers, there is no festival.”
