Book of the Week: MINOR DETAIL by Adania Shibli (translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette)

This superbly well written novel is comprised of two reflecting parts: the first narrating the fate of a young woman abducted by soldiers during the 1948 Nakba/Palestine War; the second telling of a contemporary woman's obsession with finding out more about this 'minor detail' of history. Shibli is interested in how the past remains in and shapes the present, and in how mechanisms of power harm both the wielders and the victims of that power.

• Read Thomas's review. 

• Read an extract. 

• When the present is haunted by the past.

• Join our online discussion in May.

• On learning to write again.

• Reading the present.

• Writing Palestine from the inside. 

• The choreography of violence. 

• The Nakba in a nutshell.

• A session with Dr. Shibli. 

• The politics of translation. 

• Being shut down.

• Other books on Palestine and Israel.