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Minor Detail (novel)
Cover of the New Directions edition | |
| Author | Adania Shibli |
|---|---|
| Original title | تفصيل ثانوي |
| Translator | Elisabeth Jaquette |
| Language | Arabic |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) New Directions Publishing (US) Text Publishing (Australia) |
| Media type | Book |
| Pages | 112 pages (UK) 105 pages (US) 176 pages (Australia) |
| ISBN | 9781913097172 for the UK edition. See text for ISBN for other editions. |
| OCLC | 1117463562 |
| Dewey Decimal | 892.737 |
Minor Detail (Arabic: تفصيل ثانوي, romanized: Tafṣīl Thānawī) is a 2017 novel by the Palestinian author Adania Shibli. It was translated into English by Elisabeth Jaquette in 2020.
It has two parts, first recalling a true story of the Nirim affair, a 1949 gang rape and murder of a young Arab Bedouin-Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers, and in the second part, telling of a fictional modern day account of life of a Palestinian woman who tries to investigate this incident.
The novel was nominated for a National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2020, longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2021 and won the LiBeraturpreis in 2023.
Development
It is Shibli's third novel, written over the course of 12 years.[1] It was written in Arabic, first published in that language in 2017,[2] and translated to English by Elisabeth Jaquette in 2020.[3] It is based on a true story.[4][5]
Plot
The novel recounts in its first part an historical event,[4] the gang rape and murder of a young Bedouin-Palestinian girl in 1949 by Israeli soldiers near Nirim in the Negev desert.[3][5][6]
The second part concerns a modern-day person, an unnamed female inhabitant of Ramallah, who learns about the 1949 incident from a newspaper record, becomes haunted by it as it shares the same date as her birthday, and tries to investigate the incident by visiting museum archives (including the Israel Defense Forces History Museum). Her investigation is made difficult by the travel restriction faced by the Palestinians. Eventually, having violated the travel restrictions, she has a confrontation with the IDF on the same spot as the Bedouin girl.[3][5][6][1][7]
Analysis
Several reviewers commented on the literary style of the work. Cummins observed that "The language, as light on judgment as a stage direction, is highly disconcerting... events are recorded minutely but without emotion".[3] Bhutto commented that "The settlers and soldiers she describes in the second half of the novel are rendered with no malice or artifice".[5] Devi wrote that "The narrative is told in the third person, often coldly analytic in tone... The only emotional presence in the narrative comes in the shape of the victim’s dog. And no one can understand it either."[8] Further, Shibli's detached style has been compared to Albert Camus’ The Stranger.[3]
Translations
The novel was first published in Arabic in 2017 and has since been translated into several languages. Selected editions include:
| Language | Title | Translator | Publisher | Year | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish | Un detalle menor | Salvador Peña Martín | Hoja de Lata Editorial | 2019 | ISBN 9788416537570[9] |
| English | Minor Detail | Elisabeth Jaquette | Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK); New Directions Publishing (US); Text Publishing (Australia) | 2020 | ISBN 9781913097172 (UK); ISBN 9780811229074 (US); ISBN 9781922268693 (Australia)[10][11][12] |
| French | Un détail mineur | Stéphanie Dujols | Sindbad / Actes Sud | 2020 | ISBN 9782330142094[13] |
| Turkish | Küçük Bir Ayrıntı | Mehmet Hakkı Suçin | Can Yayınları | 2021 | ISBN 9789750752551[14] |
| Italian | Un dettaglio minore | Monica Ruocco | La nave di Teseo | 2021 | ISBN 9788834606162[15] |
| German | Eine Nebensache | Günther Orth | Berenberg Verlag | 2022 | ISBN 9783949203213[16] |
| Portuguese | Um Detalhe Menor | Hugo Maia | Publicações Dom Quixote | 2022 | ISBN 9789722074421[17] |
| Polish | Drobny szczegół | Hanna Jankowska | Wydawnictwo Drzazgi | 2023 | ISBN 9788396898807[18] |
| Dutch | Een klein detail | Djûke Poppinga | Koppernik | 2023 | ISBN 9789083274355[19] |
| Indonesian | Detail Kecil | Zulfah Nur Alimah | Bentang Pustaka | 2024 | ISBN 9786231864314[20][21] |
| Serbian | Sporedan detalj | Dragana Đorđević | Laguna | 2024 | ISBN 9788652152582[22] |
Reception
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 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, 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 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]
Awards
- National Book Award for Translated Literature (finalist, 2020)[32]
- International Booker Prize (longlist, 2021)[33][34]
- LiBeraturpreis (2023)[26]
References
- Manachova, Egina (18 February 2022). "Adania Shibli, Minor Detail". Chicago Review. Archived from the original on 20 October 2023. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
- "Minor Detail: A Salon in Honor of Adania Shibli". Center for Palestine Studies | Columbia University. 22 October 2021. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
- Cummins, Anthony (2 June 2020). "Minor Detail by Adania Shibli review – between-the-lines horror". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 20 October 2023. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
- McGreal, Chris (4 November 2003). "Israel learns of a hidden shame in its early years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 21 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
- Bhutto, Fatima (30 May 2020). "Minor Detail by Adania Shibli review – horror in the desert". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 20 October 2023. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
- da Cunha Lewin, Katie (21 June 2020). "The Choreography of Violence: On Adania Shibli's "Minor Detail"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on 24 August 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
- "'I Saw Fit to Remove Her From the World'". haaretz. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- Devi, Nirmala (28 August 2020). "'Minor Detail': Adania Shibli's Novel About Helplessness". artreview.com. Archived from the original on 9 July 2022. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
- "Un detalle menor". Bookish (in Spanish). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Minor Detail". Fitzcarraldo Editions. Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Minor Detail". New Directions Publishing. Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Minor Detail by Adania Shibli". Text Publishing. Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Un détail mineur / Adania Shibli". Bibliothèque municipale de Grenoble (in French). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Küçük Bir Ayrıntı". Kitapyurdu (in Turkish). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Un dettaglio minore". La nave di Teseo (in Italian). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Eine Nebensache". Berenberg Verlag (in German). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Um Detalhe Menor". Lyvros (in Portuguese). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Drobny szczegół". Wydawnictwo Drzazgi (in Polish). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Een klein detail". Koppernik (in Dutch). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Detail Kecil". Bentang Pustaka (in Indonesian). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Detail kecil". Perpustakaan Jakarta (in Indonesian). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- "Sporedan detalj". Laguna (in Serbian). Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- Linforth, Christopher (2020). "Minor Detail by Adania Shibli". World Literature Today. Archived from the original on 19 June 2023. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
- Chakraborty, Abhrajyoti (23 June 2020). "Four Social Novels in Translation Consider the World's Ills". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
- Radisch, Iris (12 October 2023). "Was außerhalb der Literatur passiert. Debatte um Adania Shibli" [What happens outside of literature. Adania Shibli debate]. Die Zeit. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
- "The winner 2023 / LitProm". www.litprom.de. Archived from the original on 17 July 2023. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
- Oltermann, Philip (15 October 2023). "Palestinian voices 'shut down' at Frankfurt Book Fair, say authors". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 15 October 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- De Loera, Carlos; Kachka, Boris (16 October 2023). "More than 1,000 sign open letter decrying cancellation of German event for Palestinian author". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 16 October 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- AFP and ToI Staff. "Frankfurt Book Fair hit by furor after postponing prize for Palestinian author". The Times of Israel. ISSN 0040-7909. Archived from the original on 22 October 2023. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
- Radisch, Iris (12 October 2023). "Was außerhalb der Literatur passiert" [What happens outside of Literature]. www.zeit.de (in German). Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- Ingendaay, Paul (13 October 2023). "Palästinenserin Adania Shibli: Buchmesse verschiebt Preisverleihung". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 25 October 2023. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
- "Minor Detail". National Book Foundation. Archived from the original on 19 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
- "Minor Detail | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. 6 May 2020. Archived from the original on 19 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
- "Adania Shibli and Elisabeth Jaquette on Minor Detail | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. 17 June 2021. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
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