Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
The Palestinian cause was never a stranger in our minds even as children; it has always been a subject of discussions in our household and wherever I visited in my Keralite community. But in October 2023, the situation in Gaza escalated to a level & detail in which it has never been documented before, and that spurred me to read up both fiction and nonfiction set in Palestine. This book was one such. Furthermore, in October 2023, shortly after Hamas attacked Israel, the Frankfurt Book Fair canceled a ceremony in which the author Adania Shibli was supposed to receive an award for the book, citing that the decision was made “in light of the terror against Israel”. Written in two parts, Minor Detail is a short book, takes a day or two to read, but leaves a heavy mark. The first part recounts the gang rape of a young Palestinian girl in 1949. The second part recounts a tale from a more recent period in which a woman finds a report of the rape that happened in 1949 and is curious to find out more about it. Written originally in Arabic, the book was translated to English in 2020 and now available in a blue cover Fitzcarraldo Edition.
A Day In The Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Trall
Another book I read around the same time was this riveting account of Abed Salama’s search for his son on the day of a 2012 school bus accident in which several Palestinian children and a teacher died. In writing this book, the journalist Nathan Thrall explores the history, urban infrastructure, healthcare system, transportation networks of occupied West Bank in an effort to make sense of all the ways in which the average Palestinian’s life is at a disadvantage in comparison to the lives of the occupying forces. All of these factors make the accident and the subsequent rescue efforts unlike a road accident happening anywhere else in the world.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Set in the 1980s in the time of a civil war in Sri Lanka, this book narrates the afterlife of Maali Almeida, a dead photojournalist who has been given a time of seven moons to get out into the real world and find out how he died before he is sent permanently to the afterlife. Written in second person and in vernacular Sri Lankan English, Shehan Karunatilake uses dark humor and political satire to deliver his message. Personally, this book was inspiring for me in a way that I went back to creative writing after putting down my pen for over two years. Reading about war is never easy despite the humor and Shehan Karunatilake captures the ironies of war and all its horrors.
This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El Mohtar & Max Gladstone
A winner of numerous awards, this book by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, is a short and quick read. Nevertheless the book leaves an impact on several counts. The format is epistolary. The genre is science fiction, fantasy, and LGBTQ romance. I could keep gushing praise about the novel but I might give away the plot. Like the other books before mentioned, this one too is set in a world troubled by conflict, albeit in a distant future.
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
When I met Dr. Abraham Verghese at a literature festival, I was midway reading this 700+ pages book. I told him my thoughts on the book thus far: “it feels like I’m reading a Malayalam novel in English”. To which he replied, “That was what I was hoping to do. It makes me happy to hear your feedback.” Anyone who’s read a Malayalam novel such as Hareesh’s Meesha (Moustache) would know what I meant. The Covenant of Water spans over 70 years, three generations of an Orthodox Saint Thomas Christian family living along the backwaters in Kerala. In parts tragic and in some hopeful, the book touches on a number of themes including a medical mystery that the affects the family for generations, the British colonial rule, the casteist & patriarchal society prevalent at the time, the Naxal movement in Kerala, death, love, life… and the significance of water as a backdrop for the entire novel.
