Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
Palestinian Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah is back on the slate for Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2027.
Organisers rescinded her place in the 2026 program back in January, sparking a mass boycott and the cancellation of the entire event.
Returning under new director Rosemarie Milsom, Writers’ Week 2027 will feature international writers including Pachinko novelist Min Jin Lee and American author Dave Eggers, with the full program to be revealed in January.
Abdel-Fattah will appear alongside French-Moroccan writer and journalist Le?la Slimani, at a ticketed event titled Between the Lines.
The slate for the broader Adelaide Festival was revealed on Tuesday, with its visual arts offering featuring yet another artist who has weathered recent disinivitation.
A Khaled Sabsabi retrospective will take over the Samstag Museum of Art, the artist’s first solo exhibition since he represented Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Sabsabi’s disinvitation in 2025 as Australia’s representative for the prestigious art event created a storm of controversy, and he was eventually reinstated.
The most recent Adelaide Festival kicked off with a free outdoor concert by Britpop band Pulp, but artistic director Matthew Lutton confirmed a similar mass offering was not possible in 2027.
“It takes a lot of things to align to have a free event like that come about, the right artists being in the country at the right time, the right funding that we can secure for it,” he told AAP.
Back in June, TEG Live announced the cancellation of large-scale opera AIDA, which was to have been staged at Adelaide Oval at the end of February as part of the festival, with a cast and crew of 400 people travelling from Italy.
While some main attractions didn’t turn out as planned for 2027, there are previously announced headliners: the opera Bluebeard’s Castle, Barrie Kosky’s K, and Robert Icke’s Oedipus starring Richard Roxburgh and Heather Mitchell.
The latter is a re-telling of the ancient myth Oedipus Rex as a modern political drama in a production that has triumphed at the West End and on Broadway.
A version with two of Australia’s best-loved actors is part of a new plan to invite local cast to star in Australian remakes of international hit shows, explained Lutton.
“This is a different way that the Adelaide Festival can engage with extraordinary international theatre, but with Australian talent,” he said.
The broader program features 54 events including seven world premieres and 12 Australian premieres.
Icelandic composer ?lafur Arnalds will play at the Adelaide Festival for the first time with Falling Apart Together, while 10 performers will take on all 20 piano etudes by famed US composer Philip Glass in a single evening performance.
The Adelaide Festival runs from February 26 till March 14, with tickets going on sale Tuesday.
