★ 12/22/2023
Kahn (Onion Tears) stuns with a multigenerational gothic tale infused with magical realism, set at Akbar Manzil, a crumbling, formerly grand estate off the coast of South Africa that now serves as a boardinghouse. Sana and her father arrive there after suffering a devastating loss. Curious, lonely Sana digs into the mansion's history, discovering the diary of Meena, a woman who died tragically a century ago in the house. While Sana's fascination with Meena's story grows, she's watched by a djinn, a spirit who once loved Meena and has been drifting, grieving and rageful, since her death. Sana is the first of Akbar Manzil's eclectic collection of inhabitants to really look at the strangeness of their home, and the old wounds that her curiosity opens will change all of their lives forever. VERDICT This novel is a mystery and a love story fraught with heartbreak, infused with Islamic mythology, and written in evocative, lyrical prose. Fans of Isabel Allende and Alice Hoffman will be enchanted with this beautiful book.—Lacey Tobias
★ 2023-11-17
A haunted house full of haunted people is the setting for this lively, moving tale.
When 15-year-old Sana Malek and her widowed father move from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Durban in 2014, they land in a once-glorious mansion overlooking the sea, now a ramshackle rooming house presided over by a kindly old man called Doctor. Sana is familiar with ghosts, having been haunted all her life by the spiteful ghost of her previously conjoined twin sister, who died soon after they were separated. So she recognizes that the house teems with them. She forms tentative bonds with some of the place’s corporeal residents, a group of contentious older women. But she’s more interested in the departed, and she begins to unravel their stories, especially when she finds a long-locked bedroom with diaries and photos that are evidence of a couple in love. In 1919, we learn in the book’s second timeline, a dashing, wealthy young Muslim man named Akbar Ali Khan left his village in Gujarat. Eventually he settled in Durban, following an arranged marriage in India with his modern Anglophile wife, Jahanara Begum. They have a son and daughter, but their marriage never warms, despite the spectacular house and gardens he builds for them. Then he does fall in love, with a Tamil girl hired to work in his sugar factory. Meena rejects him, but he takes her as another wife anyway, patiently winning her over until their love catches fire. Akbar isn’t the only one in love with Meena; the djinn of the title, an ancient creature weary of the world, is enchanted. But Jahanara’s bitter jealousy of Meena will lead them all to a terrible fate. Almost a century later, Sana will put it all together—but will that bring catastrophe? Khan’s prose is lush and lovely, her pacing skillful, and she successfully weaves a complex plot with a large cast.
A ghost story, a love story, a mystery—this seductive novel has it all.
A MUST-READ DEBUT NOVEL FROM LIBRARY READS | INDIENEXT | THE WEEK | IO9 | BOOK RIOT | DEBUTIFUL | AUDIOFILE MAGAZINE | BORROW, READ, REPEAT | PUBLISHERS WEEKLY | SHELF AWARENESS
“The city of Durban on South Africa’s east coast falls psychically somewhere between Miami and New Orleans. It’s sugarcane-sticky and portside-seedy, a little glam, a little Miss Havisham. Add vervet monkeys and a turbulent colonial history and Durban Gothic should already be its own genre. That it’s not means Shubnum Khan gets to set the tone with her magical and only gently haunted haunted-house novel, ‘The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years’…Despite the Gothic trappings, this is not a novel of creeping dread. It’s rich and swoony, tilting for the ecstasy of Sufi poets like Rumi, with a wink to those epic Indian romance movies Pinky adores…The love story at the heart of the novel is grand and gorgeous and brave…an ambitious delight, with rich characters and some exceptionally lovely writing…A decade ago, Khan’s photograph made her a sensation. I suspect her writing will do the same again. This is the start of a major career.” — The New York Times Book Review
“Khan’s imbuement of sorrow and shame into the character of moldering 1920s palace Akbar Mansil is only one of the choices that render her American debut a triumph. Her novel is lush yet precise, tightly winding two narrative strands around each other to create a tapestry of love, loneliness, grief, and forgiveness…This foundation of the world’s cruelties melds with Khan’s rhythmic writing to create an immersive and memorable novel. The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is reminiscent of such luminaries as Isabel Allende and Elif Shafak, and the delicious power of its rotting manor will draw more recent comparisons to Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s incredible Mexican Gothic. Yet Shubnum Khan has created a fable all her own, and readers drawn to everything from historical fiction to young adult fantasy will find something to love in this haunting reverie of a book.” — Reactor (formerly Tor.com)
"The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a powerful, gorgeous novel. Shubnum Khan has written a story brimming with evocative prose, well-developed characters, and fantastical elements rendered so realistically you forget you’re reading speculative fiction. This is one of those books I wish I could read again for the first time." — Locus Magazine
"Khan’s prose is lush and lovely, her pacing skillful, and she successfully weaves a complex plot with a large cast. A ghost story, a love story, a mystery—this seductive novel has it all." — Kirkus *starred revew*
"Khan stuns with a multigenerational gothic tale infused with magical realism, set at Akbar Manzil, a crumbling, formerly grand estate off the coast of South Africa that now serves as a boardinghouse....This novel is a mystery and a love story fraught with heartbreak, infused with Islamic mythology, and written in evocative, lyrical prose. Fans of Isabel Allende and Alice Hoffman will be enchanted with this beautiful book." — Library Journal *starred review*
"Dazzling...a magical and richly atmospheric gothic coming-of-age tale...Cinematic in scope and rendered in redolent prose, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a deeply immersive and inventive exploration of the many facets of love, loneliness and grief. Khan’s descriptions of Durban ground the story despite its fantastical elements, making the novel all the more compelling. Fueled by its vivid details, bewitching setting and a colorful cast of characters (including the house Akbar Manzil itself ), this engrossing read acts as a potent reminder that the past does not merely hold the power to hurt us, but also to heal us.” — BookPage
"Haunting and healing, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, with its shades of The House of Spirits and Rebecca, is one of the best books I've read this year…Khan's gorgeous writing lays bare what it means to love, grieve, haunt and, ultimately, let go." — Sarah Addison Allen, New York Times bestselling author of Other Birds and Garden Spells
“Filled with wonder and colour, the secrets of the dilapidated mansion Akbar Manzil come to life in this rich tale of loss and love. The arrival of 15 year old Sana, who is herself haunted, is the catalyst that revives long-forgotten memories, as well as the spirit that still lingers in the empty rooms. I was enthralled and completely swept away by Khan's masterful unspooling of family secrets, fatal jealousy, and a love that endures after death.” — Yangsze Choo, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Tiger
"The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a dark and heady dream of a book, which reveals itself in layers as a gothic horror, a tragic romance, and a classic coming-of-age tale. Hauntingly gorgeous." — Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Starling House
"The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years is a cinematic spectacular, rife with doomed love and vengeful spirits and a lurking violence always waiting to pounce. Shubnum Khan has written a gorgeous gothic mystery, a fascinating meditation on the nature of forgiveness and time."
— Julia Fine, author of Maddalena and the Dark
“Haunting, beautiful, and atmospheric…I loved it.” — Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Broken
"Beautifully written with intriguing characters and a story line that spans time, this subtle fantasy novel mixes historical fiction with dark fairy tales." — Booklist
"South African novelist Khan blends gothic tropes with Indian mythology in her poignant U.S. debut...The novel coheres as Khan portrays the house’s point of view, showing in playful and evocative prose how it responds to new residents (“As the new smells climb excitedly into the eaves... older smells, annoyed, move higher up away”). This holds its own in a crowded field of neo-gothic fiction." — Publishers Weekly
"Shubnum Khan is a spellbinding storyteller. Her subtly spooky debut is a marvelous literary tableau, offsetting an enchanting love story amid the opulent grounds of a palatial manor (once "the grandest house on the east coast of Africa") with revelations of the mysterious tragedy that led to Akbar Manzil's abandonment." — Shelf Awareness
"Khan, making her literary-horror debut, spins a haunted-house narrative around the under-utilized concept of the djinn, a spirit drawn from Arab and Muslim folklore. In the book, Sana finds the century-old diary of a girl named Meena. She then tries to find out what happened to her at the dilapidated Akbar Manzil mansion, now a boarding house for the down-on-their-luck, on the South African coast. But as Sana works to unravel Meena's mysteries, she is stalked by a djinn through the sprawling house, which is almost its own character." — The Week
"Filled with luscious prose, her book is a vivid coming-of-age that uses gothic undertones to explore romance and beauty in a refreshing and haunting way." — Debutiful
"Expect gothic thrills in this novel about the mysterious legacy of a mansion off the coast of South Africa." — AudioFile Magazine
"A sumptuous and haunting multi-generational saga set in a crumbling estate along the coast of South Africa, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years promises to be a fresh take on a classic and beloved genre.” — Polygon
“South African writer and artist Shubnum Khan makes her stunning U.S. debut with this genre-bending gothic horror fantasy mystery.” — Ms. Magazine
