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After Adelaide, who are writers festivals for? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christanaming it.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, January twenty two, twenty twenty six. It's the
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  Speaker 1: Writer's festival drama that's crashed out of the literary world
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  Speaker 1: and into the mainstream. The cancelation of Adelaide Writer's Week
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  Speaker 1: following a mass author boycott. Now the controversial author at
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  Speaker 1: the center of it all is back on the bill.
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  Speaker 1: But is that the right move for the festival and
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  Speaker 1: for us all. That's today's episode.
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  Speaker 2: This pre date seven October. This is seventy five years
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  Speaker 2: of settler colonialism and violence against Palestinians.
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  Speaker 1: This author, Randa abdel Fatah, is at the center of
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  Speaker 1: a raging controversy. At the start of January, organizers of
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  Speaker 1: the Adelaide Writers Week announced the anti Israel author had
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  Speaker 1: been disinvited from the twenty twenty six event. They cited
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  Speaker 1: cultural sensitivities as the reason for her axing following the
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  Speaker 1: Bondai Beach terror attack on December fourteenth, where fifteen people
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  Speaker 1: were killed and dozens more were injured when two gunmen
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  Speaker 1: opened fire on a Harneker by the Sea event. Abdelphatar
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  Speaker 1: is a Muslim woman, a lawyer, academic, and activist. She's
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  Speaker 1: also a vocal supporter of Palestine and is fiercely anti Israel.
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  Speaker 1: She celebrated the October seven, twenty twenty three attack by
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  Speaker 1: her mass militants where more than twelve hundred Jews were
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  Speaker 1: kidnapped and slaughtered, and has called for the destruction of
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  Speaker 1: Israel on more than one occasion. She says she's not
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  Speaker 1: an anti Semite, but many Jewish leaders disagree. Randa Abdelfhatar
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  Speaker 1: was invited to Adelaide Writer's Week by Louise Adler to
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  Speaker 1: promote her new novel called Discipline, which follows two Muslims
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  Speaker 1: through Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. It's
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  Speaker 1: set against the backdrop of the Israel Hamas war and
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  Speaker 1: is the first book she's written for an adult audience. Previously,
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  Speaker 1: she's written predominantly for children and young adults. The backlash
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  Speaker 1: to her dumping from Writer's Week was swift and brutal.
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  Speaker 1: Within days, one hundred and eighty authors withdrew from the festival,
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  Speaker 1: and sponsors quietly retreated its program suddenly barren The twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty six Adelaide Writers Week, which was due to get
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  Speaker 1: underway in late February as part of the Adelaide Festival
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  Speaker 1: was canceled. Then several members of the festival's board quit,
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  Speaker 1: along with Writer's Week director Louise Adler.
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  Speaker 2: I think when we look back on this history, we
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  Speaker 2: will see a masterclass in poor governance, an act of
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  Speaker 2: cultural vandalism.
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  Speaker 1: A heated debate about cultural sensitivity, extrememism, political influence and
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  Speaker 1: protection for free speech erupted. Abdelphatar claimed South Australian Premier
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  Speaker 1: Peter malanowskis defamed her Twice. Premier Peter Malanowskus is accused
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  Speaker 1: of defamation. Today served a concerns notice from the lawyer
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  Speaker 1: of the ousted author, and then Abdelphatar was back. The
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  Speaker 1: new Writer's Week board invited the author back for the
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven event and issued a grovelling apology.
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  Speaker 2: We obviously believe this is the right thing to do
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  Speaker 2: at this time. It is not a light decision to make.
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  Speaker 2: There really was a need for an apology and that
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  Speaker 2: is the view of this board.
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  Speaker 1: Caroline Overington is The Australian's literary editor. Caroline the Adelaide
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  Speaker 1: Writers Week and festivals like it have become quite politically charged,
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  Speaker 1: but what's actually selling and what we've talked to you
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  Speaker 1: about on the front in the past is romanticy. So
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  Speaker 1: should writers' festivals and book weeks like this one stay
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  Speaker 1: in that lane? Or is this politicized, highly charged version
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  Speaker 1: just what they are now.
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  Speaker 2: No, I don't think it is what they are now,
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  Speaker 2: and I also don't think it's what the audience wants.
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  Speaker 2: I think what the audience wants is to talk about
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  Speaker 2: books and ideas and competing ideologies. But I think they
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  Speaker 2: want to do it in an old fashioned way, which
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  Speaker 2: is to say, a collegiate way, a kind way, a
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  Speaker 2: fair way. They want a writer's festival to be part
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  Speaker 2: of the community they don't want, and I don't think
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  Speaker 2: anyone wants really a writer's festival. That's just people banging
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  Speaker 2: a drum over and over again the same points of view.
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  Speaker 2: Nobody else will be heard, and what they want is
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  Speaker 2: to feel joyful. I mean, I hope I'm not naive
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  Speaker 2: about that, but I don't want to hear the same
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  Speaker 2: arguments I could just get if I tuned into a
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  Speaker 2: very old, bad version of Q and A.
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  Speaker 1: The Adelaide Writers' Week is of course government funded, but
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't appear to have government oversight. Is it even
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  Speaker 1: worth it for governments to throw these kinds of events
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  Speaker 1: or would they be better off investing those quite substantial
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  Speaker 1: funds elsewhere.
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  Speaker 2: I think the government has to support the arts. I
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  Speaker 2: think they do because who else is going to put
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  Speaker 2: on a writer's festival like that. We need the government
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  Speaker 2: to provide some support for us. And there are private
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  Speaker 2: philanthropists too. I don't make a song and dance about it,
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  Speaker 2: but they do put in money because this is something
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  Speaker 2: they're proud of and they want to see more of.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not convinced that the government should just withdraw. I
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  Speaker 2: am convinced that the government has no role to play
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  Speaker 2: in the programming. I really believe that. I think that
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  Speaker 2: a really good artistic director, a really passionate artistic director,
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  Speaker 2: a fair minded artistic director, can put together a program
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  Speaker 2: that people want to see, and can put together a
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  Speaker 2: program that doesn't result in one hundred and eighty people quitting.
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  Speaker 2: I worry that the idea that Australia is the kind
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  Speaker 2: of place where you can come and see these amazing
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  Speaker 2: cultural events, he's going to slip from our grasp because
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  Speaker 2: we're so completely polarized and unwilling to talk to each
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  Speaker 2: other and unwilling to meet each other in a state
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  Speaker 2: of grace.
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  Speaker 1: You are yourself an author of more than a dozen books.
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  Speaker 1: You live in the literary world. What are you hearing
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  Speaker 1: from authors and publishers in the fallout of Adelaide Writer's Week?
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  Speaker 1: Are they in despair or are they viewing this as
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  Speaker 1: an opportunity to reset how things are done going forward?
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  Speaker 2: Can I be honest? The feeling is sorrow, It's something
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  Speaker 2: akin to grief. I can't I've tried, but I can't
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  Speaker 2: ever properly explain what this festival meant to Australia. It is,
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  Speaker 2: without question, the oldest and the most popular, the most
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  Speaker 2: egalitarian and the only free writers festival in Australia. It
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  Speaker 2: is a beautiful cultural bloom on the landscape. Or it was.
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  Speaker 2: It's a tragedy that we have lost this festival, an
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  Speaker 2: absolute tragedy, and that is the feedback that I am
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  Speaker 2: getting from writers all across Australia, publishers as well. They
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  Speaker 2: can't believe it that something that was so precious has
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  Speaker 2: slipped out of our hands. Imagine the tens of thousands
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  Speaker 2: of people who were intending to go who had booked
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  Speaker 2: hotel rooms, who were excitedly looking forward to it, who
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  Speaker 2: wanted to take their children, who feel pride in their
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  Speaker 2: state because their state hosts a world class literary festival,
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  Speaker 2: and you feel proud of it, and you turn up
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  Speaker 2: and you sit there and you have a great day
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  Speaker 2: and you talk about it with your friends, and they
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  Speaker 2: can't do that. And I am distraught about it, as
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  Speaker 2: I think most people.
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  Speaker 1: Are coming up can Adelaide recapture the magic?
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  Speaker 2: How quickly we turned on each other with glaring looks,
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  Speaker 2: turned back and sorrow we left you to walk away.
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  Speaker 1: This is the author Kate Llewellyn reading a verse from
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  Speaker 1: a poem she wrote in the Fallout of the Adelaide
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  Speaker 1: Writer's Festival Fiasco. At ninety Llewellyn has attended every Adelaide
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  Speaker 1: Writer's Week except the first, which was held in nineteen sixty.
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  Speaker 1: Here's Caroline Overington.
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  Speaker 2: She missed the first one because she was pregnant, and
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  Speaker 2: she went along to the second one and she said
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  Speaker 2: straight away, I just knew this was going to be
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  Speaker 2: something amazing for Australia. And she started writing poems of
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  Speaker 2: her own. She's now written I think twenty five books
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  Speaker 2: six of them are collections of poetry. She's really the
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  Speaker 2: best placed, I think, to talk to us, all of
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  Speaker 2: us about what Adelaide Writers' Festival means to the country,
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  Speaker 2: and how devastating it is that it's gone just wiped
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  Speaker 2: away so idly, so casually, as if it hardly matters
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  Speaker 2: at all, when in fact it was a duel.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me a bit about katela Wellens's reaction to
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  Speaker 1: the circumstances surrounding the cancelation of the twenty twenty six
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  Speaker 1: Adelaide Writers Festival.
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  Speaker 2: She's written a beautiful poem about this, which we're publishing
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  Speaker 2: in the paper, and she talks about the way the
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  Speaker 2: Writer's Festival was meant to be not at all controversially
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  Speaker 2: about writing. It was about writers. So John Updight came,
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  Speaker 2: Ted Hughes came. People would talk about their books, how
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  Speaker 2: they came to write them, where they got the idea,
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  Speaker 2: whether they thought they pulled it off, and they knew
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  Speaker 2: as a reader could go and buy the book and
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  Speaker 2: decide for yourself. What Kate says is that when Louise
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  Speaker 2: Adler took over the Writer's Festival in twenty twenty three,
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  Speaker 2: it almost immediately became more political. I think that is
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  Speaker 2: a trend that has been coming for a while. The
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  Speaker 2: idea became more about ideas and political ideas in particular
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  Speaker 2: repitting people against each other. You might remember, I certainly
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  Speaker 2: do that. The twenty twenty three festival was mired in
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  Speaker 2: controversy because Louise had decided to have a day particularly
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  Speaker 2: for Palestinian writers, and she invited a bunch of people
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  Speaker 2: from overseas and they came out and some of them
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  Speaker 2: had these really dodgy social media accounts where they said
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  Speaker 2: quite inflammatory things and there wasn't a lot of counter
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  Speaker 2: opinion coming in. It wasn't a balanced discussion. But it
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  Speaker 2: really came to a head this year because initially we
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  Speaker 2: were all told that a Palestinian Australian writer had been disinvited,
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  Speaker 2: and that was true, so she'd received an invitation from
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  Speaker 2: Louise Adler and then the invitation had been rescinded. Now
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  Speaker 2: I don't know a single writer, or very very few
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  Speaker 2: who could tolerate that, because most people, most writers believe
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  Speaker 2: in free speech. Their free speech absolutists actually, they believe
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  Speaker 2: that you have a right to have your say, however
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  Speaker 2: apparent it might be. To me, what nobody knew at
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  Speaker 2: the time was that the same people had been advocating
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  Speaker 2: for the exclusion of other writers from this festival and
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  Speaker 2: from other festivals. So we know, for example, that Randa
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  Speaker 2: abdel Fatar had urged the board to disinvite a Jewish writer,
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  Speaker 2: Thomas Friedman, a Politzer Prize when he writer from The
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  Speaker 2: New York Times just two years earlier. And we know
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  Speaker 2: that she signed a petition about Deborah Conway, a Jewish
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  Speaker 2: guitar player and singer. And I guess one of the
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  Speaker 2: things that Kate was saying, and many writers I know
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  Speaker 2: are now saying, is we didn't know that. We didn't
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  Speaker 2: know that the wholesale cancelation of writers was happening across
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  Speaker 2: the board to all kinds of people, and that the
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  Speaker 2: people who were standing up and saying, you know, free
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  Speaker 2: speech and don't censor us, were engaged in censorship or
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  Speaker 2: a temp set censorship themselves. That is what has most
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  Speaker 2: shocked people and hurt people. It has hurt people because
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  Speaker 2: they're people of goodwill who wanted to stand up for
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  Speaker 2: someone who was being canceled, only to find that she
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  Speaker 2: had been involved in the attempted cancelation of others herself.
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  Speaker 1: Just lastly, Caroline, if we cast our minds forward to
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven, of course, Randa abdel Fata has now
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  Speaker 1: been reinstated on the lineup for next year's Adelaide Writer's Week.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think it can recapture some of that magic
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  Speaker 1: that you've talked about next year, noting everything that's gone on?
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  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know why they did that, and
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  Speaker 2: I think it's a mistake, not because it's arounda I
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  Speaker 2: think it's a mistake because I think they need to
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  Speaker 2: take this time to reset. I think now that it's happened,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a tragedy that it's happened, But now
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  Speaker 2: that it's happened, it's a good idea. I think to
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  Speaker 2: let the new board settle and think about the kind
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  Speaker 2: of festival they want to be, and think about the
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  Speaker 2: kind of atmosphere they wish to bring to it and
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  Speaker 2: what goodness they wish to put in the world. What
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  Speaker 2: do we want to do? Do we want to be
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  Speaker 2: divisive and ugly and political and obsessed with events of
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  Speaker 2: the day, or do we want to be grace filled
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  Speaker 2: and generous and warm and entertaining and electrifying and I
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  Speaker 2: think that that takes time. They really need this time
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  Speaker 2: to just recalibrate, take a deep breath, think about how
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  Speaker 2: do we go forward.
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  Speaker 1: Caroline Overington is The Australian's literary editor. For all the latest,
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  Speaker 1: visit the Australian dot com dot au