Reading Minor Detail by Adania Shibli was a quiet yet unsettling experience—like stepping into a room where something has just happened, and no one’s talking about it. The silence in this book is almost louder than words. And yet, if you pay attention, the book is filled with subtle, layered moments—small things that say everything. Here are the “minor details” that struck me most.
The Title
Let’s start with the title: Minor Detail. At first glance, it sounds clinical. Cold. But by the end of the novel, it felt anything but.
The Palestinian woman in the second part of the book becomes obsessed with something she read in a newspaper—an article about the rape and murder of a Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers in 1949. The journalist had reduced the entire event to a passing detail. It was a “minor” note in the larger story.
But how can rape and murder be a minor detail? That girl was sixteen—a minor in every sense of the word. And for the soldiers, she was just that: a small, forgettable footnote in their occupation, disposable. The title holds multiple meanings, and none of them are minor.
The Dog That Howls Across Time
In both timelines, there’s a dog barking. In the first, the dog is chained near the army base, powerless and howling as the girl is abused. In the second, the contemporary woman hears a dog barking in the distance, in a seemingly different setting.
The repetition of this sound gave me chills. It’s like a thread connecting the two narratives, reminding us that trauma echoes through time. The dog’s helplessness mirrors the powerlessness of the victims. Maybe it’s also a stand-in for those of us watching these horrors unfold but doing nothing.
I don’t know exactly what the barking means—but that’s the beauty of it. It lingers. It haunts. It refuses to be silenced.
The Festering Wound
The Israeli soldier in the first part of the book has a festering wound on his side. Every day, he meticulously washes his body, carefully following the same cleansing routine, but he doesn’t treat the wound. He ignores it.
At first, I was bored with these scenes—they repeat endlessly. But then I noticed that with each repetition, the author adds one more small detail. It’s subtle but intentional.
To me, this became a metaphor. The soldiers maintain this illusion of order and cleanliness—rituals of discipline, structure, control—while the rot festers underneath. They pretend everything is in order, but there’s something rotten at the core. And it’s not just physical. It’s ideological.
The Way She Sees Things
As I was reading, I kept thinking: this author sees the world differently. The way she focuses on things others might skip over—the texture of fabric, the angle of a light switch, the shape of a map. It felt… neurodivergent. And I mean that as a compliment.
I couldn’t quite explain it, but it felt like her brain was tuned to a frequency the rest of us miss. Then I finished the book and flipped to the back cover—and there it was. Adania Shibli is autistic. Another detail that I missed when I picked up this book.
It made so much sense. Her attention to detail, her style of observation, her ability to elevate the small and make it speak volumes—it all came together. This book wouldn’t exist in the same way if she didn’t write from that place. And I’m so grateful she does.
The Bombing
There’s a moment where the contemporary woman is at work, and a bombing is announced. Her colleagues open the window, not out of fear or concern, but to let the dust settle quicker. She worries about having to work with dust all over the place afterward.
That hit me hard.
The bombing isn’t shocking to them—it’s routine. A disruption, sure, but not unusual. Like:
“What’s happening over there?” “Oh, just another bombing—you know how it is.”
That line stayed with me. It’s not just about desensitization—it’s about survival. When horror becomes routine, people don’t stop feeling; they adapt. But adapting to violence doesn’t mean it’s any less tragic.
Her Colleagues & the Zones
When the woman needs to access another zone, her colleagues help her get an ID. That moment quietly reveals the reality of occupation: the land is divided into zones, and movement is restricted based on identity, paperwork, and permissions.
It’s not spelled out in bold letters. But the fact that someone has to help her navigate these invisible borders shows how normalized—and absurd—this system has become. Divide and conquer, bureaucratically enforced.
The Old vs. New Maps
During her research, the woman keeps switching between two maps: one old, one new. I didn’t understand why at first.
Then it hit me. Cities and villages have been erased—literally. Renamed, restructured, or wiped from existence. What used to be a home is now just a blank space or a different name.
The two maps are more than just navigation tools. They’re evidence. Proof of erasure. The act of switching between them is an act of remembering.
The Ending
When I closed the book, I just sat there in silence. I’m pretty sure I didn’t catch everything. I’d probably need to reread it—maybe more than once.
But that’s the thing about Minor Detail. It’s not a fast or easy read. It’s layered and quiet and full of things you might miss if you’re not paying attention. But once you notice them, you can’t unsee them.
The horror in this novel isn’t loud. It’s quiet. Subtle. Almost polite. And maybe that’s what makes it so disturbing.
Have you read Minor Detail? What moments stood out to you? And what details—if any—did you find yourself haunted by afterward?
Let’s talk about it 👇🏽