[Dear readers: This issue contains discussion of rape, murder, genocide, and more.]
“History versus memory, and memory versus memorylessness. Rememory as in recollecting and remembering as in reassembling the members of the body, the family, the population of the past…There is no reliable literary or journalistic or scholarly history available to them, to help them, because they are living in a society and a system in which the conquerors write the narrative of their lives. They are spoken of and written about – objects of history, not subjects within it. Therefore not only is the major preoccupation of the central characters that of reconstituting and recollecting a usable past…but also the narrative strategy the plot formation turns on the stress of remembering, its inevitability, the chances for liberation that lie within the process.” — Toni Morrison on Beloved
When reading Minor Detail, Adania Shibli’s award-winning novella, translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette, readers see laid bare the ongoing, systemic, and generational brutality of the Israeli government against Palestinians. Divided into two parts—the first from the perspective of an Israeli soldier and his comrades who rape and murder a Palestinian woman, in the year following the Nakba, the second years later as a young woman in Ramallah learns of this “minor detail” erased by historical narratives and seeks to learn more—the perspectives are completely different; and yet, minor details weave them together, showcasing how despite the attempt to erase history, to erase the Israeli government’s current violence against Palestinians, the world can’t.
Minor Detail brings to mind Toni Morrison’s concept of “rememory,” or, as she wrote, “as in recollecting and remembering as in reassembling the members of the body, the family, the population of the past.” As the unnamed protagonist heads on her journey to learn more about the young woman murdered in 1949, she attempts to reassemble this past with what she knows and those around her know. “The situation has been like this for such a long time that there aren’t many people alive today who remember little details about what life was like before all this,” (Shibli, 60). But while the narrator “find[s] no details, neither major nor minor, to denounce the crime that occurred here twenty-five years to the day before I was born,” readers are shown the connections (96). We see echoes between Part One and Two, minor details that serve to connect the time periods: imagery of grass pulled out by the roots, barking dogs, spiders, camels—until finally they completely merge at the book’s climax on the final pages. This knowledge, plus what the narrator provides of everyday life in Ramallah, Gaza, and beyond, reassembles the picture. We see the past in the present.
“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” (63). In focusing on these minor details, Shibli crafts a story of censorship and reveal, one that pulls back the curtains on the Israeli government’s history and present, and their attempts to cover the atrocities they’ve committed and continue to commit. These atrocities are not simply the ones that we might see in the news, but the every day—the erasure of city and street names, of checkpoints, of wiping away the real history of a young girl brutally raped, murdered, and buried by the military. And perhaps, in that inevitability of discovery and remembering, Shibli creates a path forward for the readers’—and maybe even the protagonist’s—liberation.
The censorship of Palestinian voices
Back in October, the organizers behind the Frankfurt Book Fair and the LiBeraturpreis award ceremony canceled their award ceremony for Shibli, stating: “We strongly condemn Hamas’s barbaric terror war…Frankfurter Buchmesse stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel.” Originally, Litprom, the organization that awards the prize at the fair, claimed Shibli agreed with the cancellation. In reality, she had not been consulted at all.
And it’s not just Minor Detail and Shibli that have faced censorship; it’s Palestinian writers across the globe, and those who have spoken out in support of a ceasefire and Palestine’s freedom. Books by Palestinian authors are often not stocked in libraries and bookstores, or are present but hard to find because of “soft censorship.” The phrase “from the river to the sea” has been labeled as antisemitic by the U.S. government. PEN—who awarded Minor Detail the English PEN Award—has been disturbingly quiet about the murders and censorship of Palestinian writers and journalists. University students are being arrested, expelled, and condemed for protesting a genocide.
As Morrison wrote: “There is no reliable literary or journalistic or scholarly history available to them, to help them, because they are living in a society and a system in which the conquerors write the narrative of their lives. They are spoken of and written about – objects of history, not subjects within it.” History is far too often constructed, crafted, and monitored by those in power. Just as Minor Detail sheds light on a buried horrific act committed by the Israeli government, the censorship and attempt to cover up what is actually happening in Gaza and the West Bank—and what has been happening to Palestinians for decades now—is only another attempt to cover up these so-called minor details. To prevent people from seeing the truth that, as Shibli writes, will make violence’s existence clear.
Push for Palestinian liberation. Find resources here. And learn more about the history of organizing and occupying here.
“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.”
—Minor Detail, p63
Others’ thoughts on Minor Detail
“Following our narrator, we see as she maps the cornerstones of the land she travels, putting names to places that no longer exist. She maps the everyday violence, the aftermath of war. It is as if she was saying, ‘Listen, let me tell you these details, however small, however large, because our memory is made for more than whispers to be carried away.’" —@domdeereads
“Never lose sight of what these student protesters are speaking out against: throughout the past two weeks, as these encampments have spread across the country and world, the IDF has continued to murder palestinians by the hundreds. please do not let the media distract you from what we are fighting against.” —@reesereads
If you liked Minor Detail, read…
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
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We’ll be back in just a few weeks with our end-of-month issue to break down current topics in the publishing world.
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