Minor Detail (novel)

Translations

The novel was first published in Arabic in 2017 and has since been translated into several languages. Selected editions include:

English translation

In 2020 the book was reviewed for The Guardian by Anthony Cummins^[3] and Fatima Bhutto.^[5] Cummins called the book a "highly sophisticated narrative that pitilessly explores the limits of empathy and the desire to right... historical wrongs by giving voice to the voiceless".^[3] Bhutto called Shibli's writing "subtle and sharply observed", concluding that "The book is, at varying points, terrifying and satirical; at every turn, dangerously and devastatingly good".^[5]

Katie da Cunha Lewin, reviewing the novel for the Los Angeles Review of Books, described the book as "an intense and penetrating work about the profound impact of living with violence", concluding that "Shibli’s work is powerful and this translation by Elisabeth Jaquette is rendered with exquisite clarity and quiet control".^[6]

Egina Manachova, for the Chicago Review, called the novel as "sparse, unnerving, and haunting". She praised the quality of the translation, and described the binding element of the two parts of the novels as the concept of Nakba (the destruction of the Palestinian society and homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian Arabs). She commented on the fact that no characters in the novels are named, while the book also provides the changing names (formerly, Palestinian, now, Israeli) for various locations, arguing that it represents a "process of land expropriation and displacement".^[1]

Christopher Linforth, in World Literature Today, wrote that the novel "cements [Shibli]'s position among the top ranks of Palestinian novelists working today", calling the work "short but powerful", and praising the division of novel into two parts.^[23]

Nirmala Devi, writing in ArtReview, summarised the theme as "ostensibly a tale about the banality of brutality and the ability of the powerful to erase the powerless", concluding that the novel and its translation are "extraordinary masterclass in how to do things with words and the lacunae in between".^[8]

Writing for The New York Times, Abhrajyoti Chakraborty commented on the novel's two-part structure, writing that "perhaps the details in the two stories mirror each other because the past isn’t even past".^[24]

German translation and the LiBeraturpreis

Following the publication of the German edition in 2022,^[25] in 2023 the novel was selected for the LiBeraturpreis [de] 2023 by the German literary organisation LitProm. A few days before the announced date, LitProm cancelled the ceremony at the Frankfurt Book Fair and postponed it to an unspecified date, citing the ongoing Gaza war.^[26] More than 1,000 authors and intellectuals, including Colm Tóibín, Hisham Matar, Kamila Shamsie, William Dalrymple as well as Nobel Prize winners Abdulrazak Gurnah, Annie Ernaux, and Olga Tokarczuk, criticised the Frankfurt Book Fair and wrote in an open letter that the Book Fair had “a responsibility to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down”.^[27][28][29]

Before the Book Fair decision, the book had attracted criticism from several German critics. Ulrich Noller, a journalist on the Litprom jury, resigned from the jury in protest, claiming that the novel has “anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives". Similar sentiments were echoed by Carsten Otte [de], a literary critic associated with the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung, who wrote that the book contained a white-and-black narrative: “All Israelis are anonymous rapists and killers, while the Palestinians are victims of poisoned or trigger-happy occupiers.”^[29]

On 12 October, the prominent literary critic Iris Radisch spoke out in favour of the awarding of the prize in Die Zeit weekly magazine. She referred to the international recognition that the novel had received, saying that it was also "rightly celebrated as a literary masterpiece" by German literary critics. Radisch wrote that an outstanding literary novel by a Palestinian writer now being associated with the "current mass murders of Hamas" had nothing to do with serious literary criticism.^[30] In his article of 13 October in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, literary scholar and journalist Paul Ingendaay [de] referred to an interview with Shibli that he had conducted in 2022, quoting Shibli's statements as a writer interested in the literary representation of topics such as control and fear of a person, thereby enabling the author and reader to gain hidden insights about themselves. Shibli condemned any form of nationalism and had spoken out in favour of "perceiving the pain of others". In response to his questions about her identity as a Palestinian, "Shibli was wary of political statements and especially of agitation. Instead, she insisted on appreciating her novel Minor Detail — and fiction writing more generally — as a place for thinking about language, place, and identity, which always depends on who is reading it”.^[31]