Magical realism novel set in Durban

Submitted: 31st January 2024

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years -Magical realism novel set in Durban

This is a novel to savour. Just look at the blurb: Rebecca meets The House of Spirits in this sweeping, gorgeously atmospheric novel about a ruined mansion by the sea, the djinn that haunts it, and a curious girl who unearths the tragedy that happened there a hundred years previously.

Map of locations in The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years

BOARDING PASS INFORMATION

Destination : Durban

Author guide: Shubnum Khan

Genre: historical, magical realism

Food and drink to accompany: something the cook makes! The food sounds YUM!

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A novel to transport you to a huge house on the coast of Durban

Map of locations in The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years

This book swallowed me whole for the length of time it took me to read it. When I came out the other side, I felt as if I had had one of the most immersive, magical and ethereal reading experiences of my life!

Honestly, this book is just magical. The Djinn appears throughout in key scenes but then blends into the background once again s0 you know he’s there, watching and waiting. He links the two stories – one set in the past and the other in the present. He knew the two women separated by time. The house in which he lives has witnessed it all, and he has been watching all of this time.

Akbar Manzil is the imposing house on the Durban coast. Once the home of Meena and now Sana. Both women tell their tragic stories and their histories unfurl as the djinn watches and waits. Oh my, this felt creepy and ethereal all at once. I felt close to both women as they navigated their difficult lives and how the house became their home of sorts but more of a prison.

The story weaves and blends its magic throughout and the way the house held its secrets of tragedy and ghosts was mesmerising. The house itself is a major character in the book – its past tells a very interesting story. The way both women, across the years are haunted by the same ghosts and djinn shows that the house has never stopped breathing even when it sat empty.

There is so much I want to say about this novel but I don’t want to spoil anything! What I will say is that you should go into this eyes open, willing to meet the djinn and the two women separated by decades but united by ghosts.