Top Australia arts festival apologises for barring Palestinian writer

A major Australian arts festival has apologised to a Palestinian Australian writer after disinviting her over her remarks about Israel, sparking a controversy that forced the cancellation of this year's Adelaide Writers' Week.



The Adelaide Festival Board on Thursday retracted the decision to bar academic and novelist Randa Abdel-Fattah, inviting her back for next year's event and apologising to her "unreservedly for the harm the Adelaide Festival Corporation has caused her".



The board on Tuesday cancelled the writers' week, a premier Australian literary event and part of the Adelaide Festival, after 180 international and Australian authors boycotted it over Abdel-Fattah's ban. ⁠



The writers' week director, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author.



The festival's original board resigned in response to the backlash.



"Intellectual and artistic freedom is a powerful human right. Our goal is to uphold it, and in this instance Adelaide Festival Corporation fell well short," the new board said in a statement.