Touch

Touch centers on a girl, the youngest of nine sisters in a Palestinian family. In the singular world of this novella, this young woman's everyday experiences resonate until they have become as weighty as any national tragedy. The smallest sensations compel, the events of history only lurk at the edges--the question of Palestine, the massacre at Sabra and Shatila. In a language that feels at once natural and alienated, Shibli breaks with the traditions of modern Arabic fiction, creating a work that has been and will continue to be hailed across literatures. Here every ordinary word, ordinary action is a small stone dropped into water: of inevitable consequence. We find ourselves mesmerized one quiet ripple at a time.

Adania Shibli, novelist, essayist, and playwright, has twice received the A.M. Qattan Foundation's Young Writer Award–Palestine. She is also the author of We Are All Equally Far From Love (Interlink). Her latest novel, Minor Detail, was a finalist for the National Book Award and longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize.