#30TubeReads: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

This is an important read.

I, like everyone else I know, have been following the tragic and infuriating events in Gaza since October 7th. Reading the stories, watching the videos, and trying to make some sense of the opposing narratives that are emerging, has been an heartbreaking experience. I can go on and on about my opinions on the whole thing, but I find that futile when voices from the region are being brutally silenced. (Journalists are literally being killed, Pro-Palestine Instagram accounts have been blocked, and a communication blackout in Palestine.) Another example of this silencing is the Frankfurt Book Fair cancelling the celebration of Adania Shibli’s National Book Award finalist and International Booker Prize longlisted title Minor Detail. Almost as soon as this news broke, people everywhere condemned the move and stepped out to buy copies of the book. If this does not tell you the power of the written word and a reader community, I don’t know what will.

A couple of days ago I had a very interesting interaction with a woman on the Jubilee line. While I tried to catch a glimpse of the book she was reading (These Precious Days by Ann Patchett) she was trying to do the same with the book I was reading. To be fair, When God was a Rabbit (by Sarah Winman) is quite an eye-catching name. After exchanging a sheepish laugh I started chatting with her about the books we both enjoy. During the course of this conversation I mentioned always loving the titles published by Fitzcarraldo. Now this is why I love London readers! She told me that just that day Fitzcarraldo Editions had decided to make the e-books of Minor Detail free to download for the duration of the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was a book that I already wanted to read and my interaction with the woman felt like a sign that Minor Detail had to become a part of my #30TubeReads challenge.

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli (translated by Elisabeth Jaquette) is told in two parts. The first half of the book is set in the summer of 1949 in the Negev desert. It is narrated in almost a detached third person voice and follows the commander of an Israeli platoon that has been delegated to patrol the Egyptian border after the announcement of the new Israeli state. The second half of the novel, however, is told in intimate first person. It follows the thoughts, meanderings, and anxieties of an unnamed Palestinian woman, who sets out to uncover the details of an incident that took place in 1949. It is a short book and I read it in one sitting. I think I sat with the feelings induced by the revelation on the last page longer than it took me to actually read the book.

The ‘minor detail’ of the title signifies several different things. It stands for the absolute minute details in which Shibli describes the daily rituals of the commander. In almost identical paragraphs she describes the ways in which the commander cleans himself, his room, and his festering wound. Sentence after sentence paints a picture of the almost mundane activities that the commander seems to go through like clockwork. But at no point does Shibli’s writing get monotonous. Instead the repetitive technique successfully sets up of a seemingly calm pond that is about to be disturbed.

there are some who consider this way of seeing, which is to say, focusing intently on the most minor details, like dust on the desk or fly shit on a painting, as the only way to arrive at the truth and definitive proof of its existence.

After the repeated descriptions of the commander’s schedule, the abduction and rape of a Bedouin girl is almost an afterthought: a ‘minor detail’. Shibli masterfully conveys the message that the regular assault of women was, and still is, so common in war torn Gaza that it is a minor blip in the course of history, considered unworthy of thought or words from the commander or the platoon. This ‘minor detail’ in the course of history is what connects the first half of the novel to the second.

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 behavior, they kill her and throw her body in a well.

In the second half of the novel, the Palestinian protagonist fixates on this footnote in an article written about the platoon and a settlement in the Negev desert and decides to uncover more information about the incident than is available. The incident took place exactly 25 years to the day of her birth, a ‘minor detail’ that causes her fixation with the young girl’s story. This is a date that is mentioned over and over again in the first half of the novel but never in the second half. Shibli once again explores the minor details in history, this time through minute details of every thought that goes through the protagonist’s head as she tells us the story of how the anxious yet curious protagonist goes about uncovering additional details about the brutal incident.

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.

This book is as much about ‘borders’ as it is about ‘minor details’. The protagonist has a difficult relationship with borders. But in the course of her story not only does she cross physical borders: that between Israel and Gaza, but also the borders between past and present. She superimposes maps of the area before and after the war, she draws comparisons between the topography of the region, and tries to draw connections between the stories told by different people about the same incidents. In her fixation with one incident, she highlights the social, political, and physical changes that the region has witnessed since the incident itself.

take a deep breath. Well, no going back now, not after crossing so many borders, military ones, geographical ones, physical ones, psychological ones, mental ones.

Another being that crosses that border between past and present, is the image of the dog. The incessant barking of dogs mentioned over and over again in the book is almost like a siren, meant to create a chilling effect and draw attention to the injustices in the book. Shibli’s writing is filled with metaphors like this. For instance, the disturbing details of the commander’s festering wound could be read as a metaphor for the disturbing disintegration of humanity that was a result of the war. Beyond metaphors, Shibli’s writing is also filled with unsettling imagery. In the smell of the petrol that crosses the border between past and present, the spidery web (both real and as a metaphor for fear), and the sand dunes of the desert, her writing creates a discomfiting effect in the readers mind.

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

The violence against women in war torn regions is not, in any way, unique to the Israel-Palestine region. In Our Bodies Their Battlefield: What War Does To Women, foreign correspondent Christina Lamb states, "Ever since man has gone to war he has helped himself to the women, whether to humiliate his enemy, wreak revenge, satisfy his lust, or just because he can - indeed rape is so common in war that we speak of the rape of a city to describe its wanton destruction." Rape has been used as a weapon and women’s bodies as the battlefield for the war. Shibli’s exploration of this phenomenon is shocking, yet nuanced.

What makes this novel even more hard-hitting is that it is based on true events. Shibli’s decision to divide the book into two different time periods is representative of the fact that the only way to understand the current socio-political events in the region is by understanding the long history of Israel-Palestine violence. It is not an isolated event and therefore, cannot be judged in isolation from the historical context. This is what makes it even more important that people read Minor Detail by Adania Shibli now as we are bombarded with news and opinions from the region.

Beyond Minor Detail it is essential to read other works by Palestinian authors and give a stage to the voices that are being systemically drowned in the uproar. Some books that I find especially important are: In Search of Fatima by Ghada Karmi, Mural by Mahmoud Darwish, and Salt Houses by Hala Alyan. But here’s a list of other books about the history of Israel and Palestine that you can pick up!

When I read a book like this one I find it difficult to say that I loved it. I thought it was an important book for me to read and I am grateful for the woman on the tube who told me about the free e-book. I just wished I had got her name or social media handle, to reach out to her for more recommendations, if not anything else! I think this is one of the most important additions to the #30TubeReads list.