Shubnum Khan’s eloquent and moving debut novel opens in 1932, where a djinn (a spirit from Indian mythology, see Beyond the Book) that haunts a house by the sea is in mourning following an unexplained violent event, at once engaging the reader and setting the stage for an intriguing mystery to be unravelled. We then fast-forward to Durban, South Africa, in 2014, during the hottest Christmas anyone can remember. Fifteen-year-old Sana Malek moves with her father, Bilal, to a crumbling house called Akbar Manzil, a once-grand mansion that lay abandoned before being converted into apartments. We learn that Sana’s mother died four years before and Bilal, still grieving, is eager for himself and his daughter to make a fresh start.

However, there is something eerie about the house, which cannot be attributed to the frequent power failures, unreliable water supply, and rising damp. Previous tenants have moved in and out, complaining that the house is “not right”; indeed, that the house is somehow alive and “watching.” Those who remain when Sana and Bilal move in are an assortment of eccentric characters and lost souls of the South African Indian Muslim community, including the elderly landlord, known as Doctor. All are caught up in tangled webs of their own memories and misfortunes, as the house – and something in the house – watches furtively, silent witness to a forgotten grief.

The quiet, introverted Sana immediately becomes attuned to the house, sensing the shadow that lurks within. She hears it scuttle across the floor, perceives it in the corner of her eye, sees it lunge from the darkness and retreat before the light. In her exploration of the decaying rooms, Sana finds discarded items, old photographs, broken toys, and, eventually, a journal. Little by little, she begins to piece together the shards of the shattered family who once lived there, as the djinn watches, aggrieved, anguished, and bitter.

Hauntings are at the heart of this beautifully written and constructed novel. Both Akbar Manzil and Sana are haunted: the house by the djinn who loved and lost, and Sana by another ghost; though Sana’s supernatural encounters are depicted in so skilful and ambiguous a way that her haunting could just as easily be real or a product of her own imagination and guilt. Sana’s uncovering of the past tragedy is mirrored by her own gradual coming-to-terms with her own family’s tragic history. “So, are ghosts real?” Doctor asks Sana, after confiding that he sometimes thinks his late wife is with him. “I think ghosts are as real as we make them.”

The author powerfully evokes the contrasting worlds of a glamorous 1930s Muslim Indian family who emigrate to South Africa and the 21st century diaspora. Gloriously infused with the colours, fragrances, sounds, landscapes, and, especially, cooking, of Indian South Africa, the novel brings history, culture, and contemporary society to vivid and wondrous life. Mouth-watering descriptions of food and aromas serve to show the culinary arts as a source of comfort and healing. Bilal copes with the loss of his wife through cooking, an activity that numbs the pain of her passing. Meals unite the disparate group of tenants as a cultural connection they all share, bringing joy to a household of sorrow.

A tantalizing slow burn at first, the plot is superbly paced. Tension builds as the book travels back and forth through time, unveiling events as Sana pieces together what she can of the mystery and heightening anticipation for further revelations. The story comes full circle, past and present merge and overlap, and the book reaches an incendiary yet ultimately cathartic denouement. An exquisite, lyrical, heart-rending tale of love and loss, estrangement and belonging; and an enthralling mystery spanning a century of history and heritage – just like the djinn itself, who waits a hundred years.

Jo-Anne Blanco for BookBrowse

©Jo-Anne Blanco 2024