A moving and powerful meditation on how harrowing past events can impact on the future in unexpected ways, Minor Detail revolves around the repercussions of the rape and murder of a young Palestinian woman by Israeli soldiers in 1949.
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021
Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba - the catastrophe that led to the displacement and expulsion of more than 700,000 people - and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence.
Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this 'minor detail' of history.
A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience of dispossession, life under occupation, and the persistent difficulty of piecing together a narrative in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.
Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
ISBN: 9781913097172
Number of pages: 144
Dimensions: 197 x 125 mm
‘All novels are political and Minor Detail, like the best of them, transcends the author’s own identity and geography. Shibli’s writing is subtle and sharply observed.’ — Fatima Bhutto, Guardian
‘A sophisticated, oblique novel about empathy and the urge to right wrongs’ — Anthony Cummins, Observer
‘An intense and penetrating work about the profound impact of living with violence—Shibli’s work is powerful and this translation by Elisabeth Jaquette is rendered with exquisite clarity and quiet control.’ — Katie da Cunha Lewin, Los Angeles Review of Books
‘This is probably my novel of the year so far.’ — Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail
‘Though Minor Detail initially promises to be a kind of counterhistory or whodunit—a rescue of the victim’s story from military courts and Israeli newspapers–it turns out to be something stranger and bleaker. Rather than a discovery of hidden truths, or a search for justice, it is a meditation on the repetitions of history, the past as a recurring trauma ... For Shibli, the emblematic experience of occupation is the longue duree of ennui and isolation rather than a dramatic moment of crisis.’ — New York Review of Books
This novella raises the following question: How do you gain historical understanding of a supposedly 'minor' event when all you are presented with is biased, revisionist historical documents that seek to... More
Minor Details details conveys a sense of an extraordinary conflict whilst drawing on the everyday normality of the Palestinian experience. Shibli crafts a viewpoint that allowed a deep connection with a character that... More
This had been recommended to me before Christmas, at the time it took a little tracking down.
I knew this would be quite the read and it was. A small book but a powerful story that you simply couldn't rush....
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