A review by halfextinguishedthoughts
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

(tw, murder, rape, genocide, kidnapping, colonization) 

 

This book was on my radar for a long time and while in Europe, I looked for it. Finally, after many bookstores, I got a copy of Minor Detail by Adania Shibli. 

 

From the first pages, this book haunted me. The details and repetition employed in this novella become like a pair of glasses. They created a lens to guide the reader’s attention while obscuring things left out of our line of sight. This style was a way to both conceal and show; a way to connect events and people between time leaving us like the young woman in the second part. Both of us tried to follow the details and reveal the truth. 

 

The first section of Minor Detail narrates the story from the view of the perpetrators. We see the brutal murders, kidnappings, and rape through the eyes of the men doing the crime. The focus is on what they want it to be. We are forced to be aware of only what the Israeli soldier notes and everything else is left unsaid. A dichotomy arrives. The horror at the actions, thoughts, and words of the soldiers, and the horror at what they don’t notice or don’t care to. We are forced to find all that lies between the lines because of this point-of-view. There’s almost no emotion in the officer in charge’s narration and because of this, I felt my own multiply. 

 

The second section begins years later. The perspective shifts to that of a young woman. She tries to uncover the details of the rape and murder of the woman in the first part. In this section, we not only see how the young woman lives under occupation in Ramallah but also see how the events of the first part are published and what the Israeli journalist leaves out. She says “If one wants to arrive at the complete truth, which, by leaving out the girl’s story, the article does not reveal.” 

 

The woman becomes obsessed with finding out the whole truth but, the closer she gets, the more dangerous it is for her. The reader can see the danger ahead. Although we can stop reading at any time, the young woman, aware as she is of the danger, doesn’t stop. She can’t stop, looking for the truth. 

 

This is a harrowing book about the truth, how it connects us, and how those in power use it. Shibli masterfully creates these connections in almost suffocating detail and impact. I read this book in December of 2023 and have been thinking about it ever since. Shibli creates a tension that threatens to snap throughout.