Other Minor Details

Minor Detail is Adania Shibli's new novel.  It anchors itself in a 1949 rape and murder of a young Bedouin in 1949.

The book, as reviewed, is

a highly sophisticated narrative that pitilessly explores the limits of empathy and the desire to right (or write) historical wrongs by giving voice to the voiceless.

It is based on an actual case as reported in Haaretz in 2003. The soldiers involved were tried and punished, inadequately I add. The main culprit received 15 years. 

There was no excuse for what happened.

I would, however, hope that other rape incidents would be served by a literary treatment as there were in the past. That is, of Jewish women raped by Arabs. Other minor details.

Like Salia Zohar. Like Jewish women in Jerusalem 1920 (p. 277). Like women in Hebron in 1929 although Hillel Cohen attempted to deny that. Like Ori Ansbacher.

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