minor detail

He explains why their three days talking about Palestinian novelist Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail left him speechless.

Adania Shibli, a Palestinian novelist who divides her time between Berlin and Jerusalem, had been due to receive a prize for "literature from the developing world" for her novel Minor Detail at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

While Shibli’s Minor Detail has been smeared as being anti-Semitic by two journalists and literary editors, other serious literary critics have clearly refuted this in the German press and elsewhere.

Barbara Epler, the publisher of New Directions, the American publisher of “Minor Detail,” wrote a letter to the editor, excerpted in Monday’s open letter, demanding the correction.

“While Shibli’s ‘Minor Detail’ has been smeared as being anti-Semitic by two journalists and literary editors, other serious literary critics have clearly refuted this in the German press and elsewhere,” reads the letter, whose signatories include Wallace Shawn, Colm Tóibín, Eileen Myles, Hari Kunzru, Sapphire, Rachel Kushner and hundreds of other writers and publishers.