Name: Minor Detail
Rating: 4.268421052631579 (95 reviews)
ISBN: 9781922268693

Adania Shibli

From a young Palestinian writer comes this compelling look at the Israel/Palestine conflict, from both the perspective of an Israeli soldier in 1949 as well as that of a young Palestinian woman.

Minor Detail

Marion

•We cannot stand to see vast areas of land, capable of absorbing thousands of our people in exile, remain neglected; we cannot stand to see our people unable to return to our homeland. This place, which now seems barren, with nothing aside from infiltrators, a few Bedouins and camels, is where our forefathers passed thousands of years ago. And if the Arabs act according to their sterile nationalist sentiments and reject the idea of us settling here, if they continue to resist us, preferring that the area remain barren, then we will act as an army. No one has more right to this area than us, after they neglected it and left it abandoned for so long, after they let it be seized by the Bedouins and their animals. It is our duty to prevent them from being here, and to expel them for good. After all, Bedouins only uproot, they do not plant things, and their livestock devour every bit of vegetation that lies before them, reducing, day by day, the very few green areas that do exist. We, however, will do everything in our power to give these vast stretches the chance to bloom and become habitable, instead of leaving them as they are now, desolate and empty of people.

it's fiction but it's not really. They're so inhumane, always killing on sight and investigating later. In this fictional book, it's camels, a dog and people; in Gaza, it's kids, hospital staff and journalists. 

blue

They found no weapons. The two sergeants and soldiers combed the area several times, to no avail.

disgusting; once barbaric always barbaric.

“We cannot stand to see vast areas of land, capable of absorbing thousands of our people in exile, remain neglected; we cannot stand to see our people unable to return to our homeland. This place, which now seems barren, with nothing aside from infiltrators, a few Bedouins, and camels, is where our forefathers passed thousands of years ago. And if the Arabs act according to their sterile nationalist sentiments and reject the idea of us settling here, if they continue to resist us, preferring that the area remain barren, then we will act as an army. No one has more right to this area than us, after they neglected it and left it abandoned for so long, after they let it be seized by the Bedouins and their animals. It is our duty to prevent them from being here and to expel them for good. After all, Bedouins only uproot, they do not plant things, and their livestock devour every bit of vegetation that lies before them, reducing, day by day, the very few green areas that do exist. We, however, will do everything in our power to give these vast stretches the chance to bloom and become habitable, instead of leaving them as they are now, desolate and empty of people. “And it is here, in particular, that our creativity and innovation will be tested, once we succeed in turning the Negev into a flourishing, civilized region and a thriving center of learning, development, and culture, as we have done in the northern and central regions. For although it now seems completely arid, these expanses of desert will gradually recede with the planting of trees, and as our people engage in agricultural and industrial ventures, which will enable them to live here. But to realize all this, we must first conquer this area’s fiercest and most destructive enemies and protect it as best as we can. And our presence here is the first step toward fulfilling this vision

This illustrated the violence behind a "grammar book" (Hortense Spillers). Communicating through regurgitation 

 a sort of violence, especially when the "thread" that's being stitched is constructed by, and thus benefits, the oppressor.

Iyad Chowdhury

And he begins speaking in a voice so calm and clear, so untouched by stuttering, stammering, or rambling, that it feels as if he is smoothly unraveling a delicate thread, one which cannot easily be cut.

Saffia

The south is still in danger, and we must do everything we can to stand our ground and remain here, otherwise we will lose territory. We must not hesitate to devote all the strength and vigour of spirit that we have to building this part of our infant state, and protecting and preserving it for future generations. This requires that we go after the enemy, instead of waiting for him to appear, for "If someone comes to kill you, rise and kill him first."

We cannot stand to see vast areas of land, capable

of absorbing thousands of our people in exile, remain neglected; we cannot stand to see our people unable to return to our homeland. This place, which now seems barren, with nothing aside from infiltrators, a few Bedouins and camels, is where our forefathers passed thousands of years ago. And if the Arabs act according to their sterile nationalist sentiments and reject the idea of us settling here, if they continue to resist us, preferring that the area remain barren, then we will act as an army. No one has more right to this area than us, after they neglected it and left it abandoned for so long, after they let it be seized by the Bedouins and their animals. It is our duty to prevent them from being here, and to expel them for good.

Bilge Ince

sometimes it’s inevitable for the past to be forgotten, especially if the present is no less horrific;

The borders imposed between things here are many. One must pay attention to them, and navigate them, which ultimately protects everyone from perilous consequences.

Besides, sometimes it's inevitable for the past to be forgotten, especially if the present is no less horrific.

And the plants simply don't resist. They just surrender to the fact of their fragility, that the wind can do what it wishes with them, fooling around with their leaves, passing between their branches, penetrating their boughs, and all the while it carries the dog's frantic barking, tossing the sound in every direction.

aywen

I recognize several of them; some of my colleagues and acquaintances originate from there, from the villages of Lifta, al-Qastal, Ein Karem, al-Mallha, al-Jura, Abu Shusha, Siris, Innaba, Jimzu, and Dair Tarif. But the majority of the names are unfamiliar to me, to the extent that they invoke a feeling of estrangement. Khirbat al-Ammour, Bir Ma’in, al-Burj, Khirbat al-Buwayra, Beit Shanna, Salbit, al-Qubab, al-Kanisa, Kharrouba, Khirbat Zakariyya, Bariyya, Dair Abu Salama, Al-Na’ani, Jindas, Hadatha, Abu al-Fadl, Kisla, and many others. I look at the Israeli map again. A very large park called Canada Park now extends over the area where all these villages used to be.

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.

The cold factualness describing the events within the first part of the book and then, the casualness with which it describes what is the everyday, nearly normalised, reality of Palestinians in the second part, makes the book nauseatingly impactful.

I really have no clue how to rate something like this. The meticulous attention to detail, the inevitable horror of it, the sweltering and suffocating atmosphere…I don’t even know what to say. 

Hannah Bateman

In my acknowledgment of the significance of this book and its author, I have to say this: i could not finish this book because of the writing and prose. The themes and the story itself was exceptionally harrowing and tells an incredibly important story but it was, for me, unreadable due to the writing 

🌝🌝

just two days ago, the al jazeera journalist team in Palestine was murdered, joining the thousands of other lives taken by zionists. this book is a reminder of how easily a life can be snuffed out, becoming a minor detail amongst countless other tragedies— it puts into perspective every injustice woven into the daily life of a person under apartheid rule, every anxiety, every forgotten life. i can’t put into words how despairing this book is. Free Palestine!

jade shen

One of the most harrowing novels I have read in recent memory. An unflinching and sobering account of the brutal reality of Palestenian existence under the Israeli apartheid occupation.

meillaya

Narratively, the book captures the timeline of oppression powerfully. A story of a ‘minor detail’ that keeps repeating through time. Portraying the cruelty of war’s consequences, it emphasizes violence against women as a hidden and persistent side effect of war.

Mara D Alo Fonseca

Haunting, hard but necessary.  

Narratively, the book captures the timeline of oppression powerfully. A story of a ‘minor detail’ that keeps repeating through time. Portraying the cruelty of war’s consequences, it emphasizes violence against women as a hidden and persistent side effect of war.

A searing, beautiful novel meditating on war, violence, memory, and the sufferings of the Palestinian people 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 exile of some 700,000 people—and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims they capture a Palestinian teenager and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder, and becomes fascinated to the point of obsession, not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it was committed exactly twenty-five years to the day before she was born. Adania Shibli masterfully overlays these two translucent narratives of exactly the same length to evoke a present forever haunted by the past.

gitsa

The concept of a “minor detail” is one I know all too well, hyper fixating on a specific fact or detail and the impact it can have on your life. While I appreciated the sentiment, I think the structure of this novella was too redundant and not as gripping as it could’ve been, it felt extremely sluggish. Part of me wonders if it would’ve been better received in Arabic. Regardless, I think it’s an important and relevant reminder of the disturbing nature of the Israeli Occupation Forces and the horrific erasure of Palestinian lives, even now. 

Rana Sulieman

as the title suggests, a detail that leads you down a path in which you easily got lost in, that keeps you for pages of pages with held breath, only to punch it out of you. what an important work, as relevant now as it has been for the past several decades 

tiff <3

personal library, bought from greenlight bookstore fort greene

Patricia K

andi ☆

sani

completely haunting. and yet it is not fiction. this is what palestinians went through and which has worsened gradually with the course of time.

Amna A.

The book has two parts, both about women struggling under the Israeli occupation. One part is set in 1948 narrated by an Israeli soldier, the other takes place about half a century later from the perspective of a Palestinian woman investigating the events that happen in the first part. The book feels like two ends of a scale, each part cannot be more different than the other, yet they are linked by certain symbols and themes that balance each other out.

ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ for the first part, i was on edge all the time because of the animal bite and the ending took me by surprise. The second part was honestly a bit flat up to the last 4 pages. Ngenes banget endingnya begitu ㅠㅠ but maybe there's not much to life but pursuing our mundane obsessions anw. And how fucked up is it that in some worlds the price of being a little clumsy is death. Nyesek :(

absolutely heartbreaking, even in its smallest details. my stomach and heart ached. 

Jeremy Boyd

annalyse! 

i don’t know where to begin. i feel as though my heart is going to jump out of my chest.

a detailed sense of impending doom written in words that have no choice but to create the scene right before your eyes 

donna 

It's horrifying that this is based on a true story and even more horrifying that there are so many stories like this that will remain untold because they have been erased from history. Life under occupation for Palestinians is shocking, to see how they're treated like criminals in their own country and have been for 75 plus years is devastating. 

This was a very emotional but important read. Some parts made me feel immensely sad and heartbroken, while others enraged and frustrated me. I felt upset and I kept wondering how different my life would be, had I been born under those conditions. I loved the book's ability to evoke many emotions in me and, I really enjoyed the different POV's. Reading from the soldier's perspective goes on to show how fucked up rapists and murderers are - being able to 'read their mind' only solidifies my stance, nothing could justify their cruel actions. I felt for the girl, and the dog was such a nice addition. 

 As for the investigator, I admire her courage and grief for her ending. 

 There could be no better title for this beautiful work, it sums up the story perfectly. Lastly, I appreciate how the story sheds light on the Palestinian struggle, but also on how the world views sexual assault.

This was a very emotional but important read. Some parts made me feel immensely sad and heartbroken, while others enraged and frustrated me. I felt upset and I kept wondering how different my life would be, had I been born under those conditions. I loved the book's ability to evoke many emotions in me and, I really enjoyed the different POV's. Reading from the soldier's perspective goes on to show how fucked up rapists and murderers are - being able to 'read their mind' only solidifies my stance, nothing could justify their cruel actions. I felt for the girl, and the dog was such a nice addition. SPOILER ALERT As for the investigator, I admire her courage and grief for her ending. SPOILER END There could be no better title for this beautiful work, it sums up the story perfectly. Lastly, I appreciate how the story sheds light on the Palestinian struggle, but also on how the world views sexual assault.

Karolina

"Man, not the tank, shall prevail."


Minor Detail is written in two parts:

PART I:
The first part told in third person with a male's factual, concrete, naturalist, cold, and devoid of emotions who's the commander of a group of Israeli soldiers patrolling the Negev Desert.

Set in August 1949, a year after the Nakba, an Israeli platoon was delegated to observe the Egyptian border after the proclamation of the state of Israel. The discovery and killing of a group of unarmed nomadic Bedouins, and the rape and murder of a girl found with them.

PART II:
Told in first person by a Palestinian woman in Ramallah with passionate, oneiric, and, I think (other reviews seem to agree) some form of autism.

The woman found a story in newspaper decades later and becomes haunted by one minor detail—the fact that the girl's in story was assault happened 25 years to the day before the woman was born. The crime catches her eyes because the date of the story occurs on August 13, her birthday.


REVIEW
Even though it is already finished, I still processing the horror of atrocities. Shibli gives profound focus on action, with no room for thoughts or feelings, and even the names. Like a choreography of violence. Such heavily-detailed stories and traumatizing.

Despite its lack of dialogue, the diction and the words are pretty well defined, aka this novella is rich in narrative. Conceptually, it is easy to understand, yet seems less effective because of the heavily-detailed. But imo, the details work so beautifully to create an oppressive and bleak atmosphere.

After did some research, Minor Detail is based on real event, a war crime investigated more than 40 years later, using new unclassified documents, by the liberal/center-left Israeli newspaper Haaretz here:

https://www.haaretz.com/2003-10-29/ty...

sputnik sweetheart

“The borders imposed between things here are many. One must pay attention to them, and navigate them, which ultimately protects everyone from perilous consequences.”

“We cannot stand to see vast areas of land, capable of absorbing thousands of our people in exile, remain neglected; we cannot stand to see our people unable to return to our homeland. This place, which now seems barren, with nothing aside from infiltrators, a few Bedouins, and camels, is where our forefathers passed thousands of years ago."

The novella is divided into two parts of the story. The first part is narrated by a distant third-person voice, following a commander of an Israeli soldier group patrolling the Negev desert. In contrast, the second part is narrated by a first-person voice, a Palestinian woman, probably forty years after the atrocity occurred. One depicts a determined drive to occupy a vast land in a horrid, gruesome, and cold manner, while the other portrays a risky journey, hanging by a thin thread, attempting to cross one border after another. Though these narratives may seem to contradict one another, the small details between the past and the present alternate, and the stories intersect.

Each detail—from continuous barking fills the air in two sets of time. Plants pulled to their roots in the past yet the plants persist in growing in the present. Almost identical sets of paragraphs describe the systematic habitual washing routine of the commander. The wound from the bug bite continuously worsens from day to day—serves its symbolistic purpose of forming a profound depth into the story. 

"However, they rarely pay attention to little details like earlobes or fingernails or toenails, which is why they ultimately fail to perfectly replicate the painting. Moreover, others claim, based on the same idea, that it is possible to reconstruct something’s appearance, or an incident one has never witnessed, simply by noticing various little details which everyone else finds to be insignificant."

As readers progress through the first chapter, some might find themselves perplexed by the exposure to an event with details so minor. However, as the narrative unfolds through the later chapter, Adania Shibli explains how these seemingly insignificant details serve a purpose—they work as building blocks to create a comprehensive mosaic of the event. How even the smallest detail contributes to reconstructing the wider narrative. They become integral in offering a different perspective on the event, fostering a deeper understanding of the intricacies of the story.

This book will continue haunting me for a long time. A must-read for those who wish to get a closer look at what the occupation of the land of Palestine has brought into the lives of two girls in two different time periods, each narrates a different kind of horror but each is as haunting as the other.

Minor Detail

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