Award-winning South African-Australian writer and political analyst Sisonke Msimang has withdrawn from the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF), citing the event’s sponsorship by Airbnb, a company that operates in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

The festival, scheduled to run from May 19 to 27, is one of Australia’s most prominent literary events, drawing international authors and large audiences each year. Msimang had been invited to participate in a session hosted in collaboration with Vivid Sydney. However, she made the decision to withdraw in protest, joining other artists boycotting the festival. The protest reflects broader international momentum in the cultural and literary communities to oppose Israel’s apartheid regime and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.

In a public statement shared on May 18, Msimang explained her decision in unequivocal terms. “I was due to participate in an event at the Sydney Writer’s Festival in collaboration with Vivid. I withdrew when it came to my attention that AirBnB was a sponsor of the event,” she wrote.

Msimang, who was born in Zambia to South African freedom fighters and now resides in Perth, Western Australia, drew a direct connection between her personal history and the present-day struggle of Palestinians. “Like thousands of artists around the world I have long supported the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. As the child of South African freedom fighters, who spent long years in exile, I remain grateful for the efforts of individuals around the world who boycotted apartheid South Africa. It would be unconscionable for me to take a different stance in relation to Palestine.”

She pointed to Amnesty International’s findings, which criticize Airbnb and other travel companies for “fuelling systematic human rights violations against Palestinians by listing hundreds of rooms and activities in Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, including East Jerusalem.” While Airbnb has stated that it “takes no profits” from listings in the settlements, Msimang rejected that rationale.

A recent article from The Guardian offers a detailed account of Airbnb, along with Booking.com, is helping Israeli settlers profit from stolen land. The article reveals that there are “760 rooms being advertised in hotels, apartments and other holiday rentals in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, on two of the world’s most popular tourism websites.”

Msimang also referenced recent findings by the United Nations, which “has determined that Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza are consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war.” Acknowledging the feeling of helplessness that often accompanies such global crises, Msimang urged action: “It is easy to feel powerless in the face of the relentlessness of this violence. But we are not powerless. Write letters to your elected officials, march, and boycott products and services that prop up injustice. Every act – no matter how small it may seem – matters.”

Author of Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home (2017) and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela (2018), Msimang has been active in sharing about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, helping her audience make the connections between South African and Israeli apartheid regimes (see Brittle Paper‘s syllabus Palestine from Africa for more on this). Her most recent Substack post, called “How to write about Palestine,” satirizes mainstream Western media’s minimization of Israel’s violence against Palestinians, while also refusing to hold Israel responsible for it.

Sisonke Msimang’s decision to withdraw from the Sydney Writers’ Festival stands as a powerful act of conscience and solidarity, and an example for artists and intellectuals around the world.

Read her full statement in her Instagram post below: