2024/053: The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years — Shubnum Khan

The girl is interfering too much; she is upsetting the house; it can no longer hold on to its secrets the way it used to. More and more of the past is slipping through its fingers, and the house begins to break down further; pipes start to leak, cracks open in the walls, mold spreads, and the cold becomes unbearable. History is beginning to emerge, and the more the house fails to hide it, the more the djinn’s own terror grows. [p. 153]

Sana is fifteen, introverted and motherless: she is still dealing with her mother's death, and her belief that her mother never loved her at all. Her father Bilal decides that they'll move to Durban, a city in South Africa with a large Indian population. There, they rent rooms in Akbar Manzil, a mansion that's been shoddily converted into individual flats. The other inhabitants of the house -- glamorous former pianist Zuleikha, timid Fancy and her garrulous parrot Mr Patel, bitter Razia Bibi, the maid Pinky, the likeable owner Doctor -- are suitably eccentric. But the house itself is also a character, and so are two other entities: the djinn, which weeps in a wardrobe in a boarded-up room, and the ghost of Sana's twin sister, who didn't live long enough to be named and who wants Sana to join her. 

Sana roams the house, discovering hidden photographs and diaries, and becomes fascinated with the house's glorious heyday, when ethical industrialist Akbar Manzil built the house for his snooty Anglophile wife Jahanara, populated the garden with exotic plants and animals, and then took a second wife named Meena. The love story of Meena and Akbar, and the bitter jealousy of Jahanara and of Akbar's tyrannical mother, fascinate Sana, and as she unravels the story of Meena's death the unseen djinn (who loved Meena dearly) finds that it can still be interested -- and effectual -- in the world.

I loved the prose style, and the distinct voices of the characters (especially the house!); was slightly irritated by occasional errors (such as 'the Queen's English' in 1930: nope); found Sana's mother-mourning and her 'unmothered' state both poignant and familiar. I'd have liked more of the djinn, though. Though there's not much about Sana's life outside the house, the glimpses of present-day Durban intrigued me. I'll look out for more by this author.

Fulfils the ‘South African Author’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

Fulfils the ‘Told in non-chronological order’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.