Richard Flanagan furore is a storm in a teacup
The recent furore over Richard Flanagan pulling out of Brisbane Writers Festival due to a scheduling clash is indicative of the febrile atmosphere of the literary world.
Acclaimed Australian author Richard Flanagan cancelled from Brisbane Writers Festival for his outspoken views on Gaza? Yeah, nah.
He certainly was NOT cancelled. Still, the Booker Prize-winner is no longer on the program, more’s the pity. It’s all down to a scheduling clash, nothing to do with his views on Gaza or anything else and not a story at all, really, despite one southern-based media outlet trumpeting this headline – Author cancelled from Brisbane Writers Festival hoses down speculation. What rubbish.
Social media started a pile-on when it was clear Flanagan was no longer coming to Brisbane. The event was removed from the BWF website, which caused a flurry of conspiracy theories. It was even suggested that this was, of course, typical of Queensland.
Not true, but there are still some people who cannot quite accept that Brisbane is now a cultural capital. I illustrate that with a story. Some years ago I was, for a time, chairman of Brisbane Writers Festival and I recall The Weekend Australian running a piece by a well-known literary figure. It was a round-up of all the major writers’ festivals in the country. Except for Brisbane.
I rang the writer and asked her why she had excluded us and she replied that she had included Byron Writers Festival which was, according to her, close enough. Yes, close, but no cigar. This is the sort of attitude that some people persist with and that was clear in the social media furore over the non-story of Flanagan and BWF.
Flanagan made it clear that he was not “cancelled” in a statement on the BWF website:
“With regret and apologies to my Brisbane readers, I have had to withdraw from the Brisbane Writers Festival because of a scheduling clash with a concurrent Polish book tour. Disappointed though I am not to be there, I would urge anyone in Brisbane in mid-October to attend what promises to be a marvellous festival of great writers.”
The real scandal here is that he chose Poland over Brisbane. Oh, well. Still, some people were so outraged they called for the cancellation of BWF altogether.
Well known Brisbane writer Kris Kneen watched the drama unfold and posted on Facebook: “Please don’t go calling for BWF to be cancelled! Scheduling issues happen with larger authors. One overseas book tour trumped the local festival. I keep seeing weird outrage when none is warranted.”
Indeed. Brisbane Writers Festival artistic director Jackie Ryan was philosophical about all this, although very disappointed. She has been trying to get Flanagan to Brisbane for the festival for some time but understands that it’s all just down to a scheduling clash, which may have more to do with Flanagan’s management than the author himself.
She will invite him again next year, of course, she says. He was to talk about his new book of essays, Heresies. InReview interviewed him about that book recently.
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In Heresies, Flanagan argues that true writing means saying the unsayable and embracing heresy to counter political and cultural dogma. Of course, events such as Brisbane Writers Festival are so important as venues for free speech and a robust celebration of ideas.
With that in mind he includes in his book a recent essay, On Adelaide Writers Week. He wrote it following the debacle that saw that event cancelled after writers quit in droves following the uninviting of Palestinian Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah. The festival board bowed to political pressure and the whole thing imploded spectacularly.
“I thought it was extraordinary that politicians thought they would decide who would speak and who we would be allowed to hear,” Flanagan says.
He writes: “… if the aim of the Adelaide Festival Board members was, in their words, to act in a ‘culturally sensitive’ way, to lessen murderous antisemitism, they have instead only engorged it, allowing their act to feed into every antisemitic trope of the vilest kind. They have both gifted antisemites and the far right their cowardly act, and with it established a dangerous precedent to further encroach on freedom of speech nationally.”
He really can’t say it any plainer than that.
Flanagan was recently a guest at Byron Writers Festival, and we were looking forward to having him in Brisbane, but to suggest he has been cancelled from Brisbane is nonsense and scurrilous.
Meanwhile BWF has an impressive guest list of authors who are still coming! Andrew O’Hagan, Kate Grenville, Suzie Miller, Alice Oseman, Shaun Micallef, Melissa Lucashenko, Richard Glover, George Megalogenis, Trent Dalton and many others.
See you there.
Heresies by Richard Flanagan, Penguin Books, $36.99.
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