‘Cannot be party to silencing writers’: Louise Adler resigns from Adelaide Writers’ Week

Louise Adler has resigned as director of Adelaide Festival’s Writers’ Week, saying she “cannot be party to silencing writers” after the festival board removed Palestinian-Australian writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from this year’s program.

Writing for The Guardian, Adler said she did so “with a heavy heart”.

Louise Adler announced she is quitting as Writers’ Week director.Credit: Eddie Jim

It is the first time Adler has spoken since the board’s decision was made last Thursday. Since then, four members of the Adelaide Festival board have resigned, including the chair, and writers have resigned en masse. Adler says her count is 180.

Adler continued: “In the aftermath of the Bondi atrocity, state and federal governments have rushed to mollify the ‘we told you so’ posse. With alarming insouciance, protests are being outlawed, free speech is being constrained and politicians are rushing through processes to ban phrases and slogans,” she writes.

“Now religious leaders are to be policed, universities monitored, the public broadcaster scrutinised and the arts starved. Are you or have you ever been a critic of Israel? Joe McCarthy would be cheering on the inheritors of his tactics.”

Last Thursday, the Adelaide Festival board announced that while it was not suggesting “in any way” that Abdel-Fattah or her writing had any connection with the Bondi attack, given her past statements, “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi”.

The move prompted dozens of authors to pull out of the festival, including Jacinda Ardern yesterday, following high-profile writers Trent Dalton, Helen Garner, Zadie Smith and Masha Gessen.

More to come

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