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MINOR DETAIL (first published in 2017) is a short, engrossing novel by Adania Shibli, a Palestinian author. It is split into two parts: one is from the perspective of an Israeli officer in 1949 and deals with the rape and murder of a young Bedouin woman in the Negev desert; the other is a present-day narrative of a Palestinian woman in Ramallah who has become obsessed with learning more about this murder. What drew her attention so powerfully to this story she read on the newspaper was a "minor detail".

Both threads of the narrative come together artfully, and themes and motifs that appear in the first part reappear in the second part like a haunting echo that connects both stories. These unsettling repetitions also connect the past with the present, in the context of the ongoing Palestinian dispossession, the erasure of history and the past and present scarred by violence and bloodshed. Shibli deftly explores the enduring trauma of continued displacement and life under occupation and the result is a superb work of fiction with a really powerful climax.