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Minor Detail

Adania Shibli,

Elisabeth Jaquette (Translator)

Start date: April 1, 2025

Finish date: May 15, 2025

Discussion: 2025 Tournament

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2025 Tournament

Round E - 1 August - 15 September - Reservoir 13 vs Klara and the Sun vs Headshot
By Henk · 15 posts · 19 views

last updated 3 hours, 27 min ago

Round E voting - 15 September
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last updated Sep 14, 2025 10:36PM

What Members Thought

Sep 24, 2021 Henk rated it really liked it

Shelves: owned

A harrowing read on violence, erasure and who writes history, despite its matter of fact style of narration.
Then, after a moment of silence, he adds that the only incident he ever encountered was when he volunteered in a military unit formed after the end of the war, whose primary mission was to search for infiltrators in the area. What was the incident? I ask, trying to keep my heartbeats from choking my voice. He replies that one day, during a patrol, they found the body of a young Bedouin gir A harrowing read on violence, erasure and who writes history, despite its matter of fact style of narration.
Then, after a moment of silence, he adds that the only incident he ever encountered was when he volunteered in a military unit formed after the end of the war, whose primary mission was to search for infiltrators in the area. What was the incident? I ask, trying to keep my heartbeats from choking my voice. He replies that one day, during a patrol, they found the body of a young Bedouin girl in a nearby well, and explains to me that when Arabs are suspicious about a girl’s behaviour, they kill her and throw her body in a well. Such a shame, he adds, that they have such customs.

Minor Detail should definitely have been on the shortlist of the International Bookerprize instead of the equally short The War of the Poor.
Divided in two parts, one very matter of factly and detached, one rather chatty, the subject Adania Shibli addresses is who writes history.
The brutal humiliation, violence and death in the first part is investigated in the second part of the book. However the Palestinian narrator can hardly leave her area without checkpoint upon checkpoint, and any original sources are almost unreachable for her:
Then I ask him if, as a Palestinian, I can enter these museums and archives? And he responds, before putting down the receiver, that he doesn’t see what would prevent me. And I don’t see what would prevent me either, except for my identity card.

This chatty, possibly neurodivergent narrator born 25 years after the events in the Negev desert, detailed in part 1, encounters a lot of the same power disparities. A grim book, that meditates on history, oppression and testimony. I look forward to reading more by the author, since already in this slim work she packs a gruesome punch.
To close of the below paragraph expertly captures what the books touches upon in term of major themes:
The date on which it occurred cannot be more than a coincidence. Besides, sometimes it’s inevitable for the past to be forgotten, especially if the present is no less horrific; that is, until I’m awoken at dawn one morning by the dog barking, followed by the wail of a strong wind. I rush to close all the windows until I get to the big window, through which I see how mercilessly the wind is pulling at the grasses and trees, shaking their branches in every direction, while the leaves tremble and writhe back and forth, nearly ripping off as the wind viciously toys with them. 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. And again, a group of soldiers capture a girl, rape her, then kill her, twenty five years to the day before I was born; this minor detail, which others might not give a second thought, will stay with me forever; in spite of myself and how hard I try to forget it, the truth of it will never stop chasing me, given how fragile I am, as weak as the trees out there past the windowpane. ...more

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Aug 01, 2020 Viv JM rated it it was amazing

Shelves: women-in-translation, in-translation, read-in-2020, fiction-literary, author-female, indiepress

I have seen this described elsewhere as "haunting" and there is really no better word to describe it. The prose is crisp and mesmerising and the repeated motifs (the smell of petrol, a barking dog...) throughout the book were very effective at building a sense of dread - I finished the second half of the book in one session with my heart in my mouth.

Another excellent book from Fitzcarraldo Editions - I will be very surprised if this doesn't receive any award nominations. A definite prize-worthy ...more

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Nov 02, 2023 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

Inspired by the true story of a murdered Palestinian Bedouin girl in 1949 in the Negev desert.

The slow pacing and descriptive narrative helped me get acquainted with the hot desert setting. Shibli's change in narrative perspective from part I to II effectively shifts the tone, contrasting both time periods. The distant writing style of the first half lends it an era of suspense. I felt like an intruder, ease-dropping on a moment in history. Short but impactful. ...more

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Apr 08, 2025 Pamela rated it liked it · review of another edition

Interesting short novel in two parts that mirror and complement each other. The first part is set in 1949 and is a bleak account of the rape and murder of a Bedouin girl by a group of Israeli soldiers in the Negev desert. The second part is a present day account by a Palestinian researcher who reads an account of the 1949 crime and is driven to find out more about it, based on the ‘minor detail’ that it happened on the exact date 25 years before the researcher’s birthdate.

The book started really ...more

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Apr 12, 2025 Dawn rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, read-2025

Another story of rape, war, and oppression. I didn't really understand the point of any part of the story, how did we get from boring military assignment, to murder, to rape and then totally change direction and follow a lady from occupied territory who seems obsessed with a story for no reason and goes on a road trip to find out absolutely nothing. Just totally uninteresting. ...more

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Apr 10, 2025 Irene rated it really liked it

In the first half of this short novel, Israeli soldiers catch a young Arab woman who they humiliate, gang rape and kill. In the second half of the book, half a century later a Palestinian woman learns of this footnote to her history and sets out to uncover the brutalized woman’s story. This novella explores the experience of dispossession, of chronic threat, of having one’s story suppressed.

1 like · Like · see review