Search results for ""Author Shubnum Khan""

Rebecca meets The Island of Missing Trees in this gorgeously atmospheric novel set on South Africa's eastern coast. Endlessly playful and richly imaginative, Shubnum Khan's vibrant debut delves into the transformative powers of love and grief as it explores the legacy of South Africa's complicated past. Sana and Meena will never meet. They share little beyond Akbar Manzil, the sprawling mansion high on a clifftop above Durban that they both call home. When Meena fell in love with the owner of the house it was the grandest residence on South Africa's eastern coast, its shining marble parapets and golden domes a testament to the wealthy Indian family's prosperity. Eight decades later when teenage Sana follows in her footsteps, Akbar Manzil stands in ruins, an isolated boarding house for eccentrics and misfits. This is a place where people come to forget. Or to be forgotten. But unlike her neighbours Sana is curious about her new home, and finds herself irresistibly drawn to its deserted east wing. As she moves closer to unearthing Meena's story, a grieving djinn begins to stir from its long sleep. The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a haunting, a love story, a mystery and an unforgettable tale of a young girl's search for belonging. 'Filled with wonder and colour, the secrets of the dilapidated mansion Akbar Manzil come to life in this rich tale of loss and love... I was enthralled and completely swept away.' - Yangsze Choo, author of The Night Tiger * A Cosmopolitan 'Best Book for February' *

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In an old wardrobe a djinn sits weeping. It whimpers and murmurs small words of complaint. It sucks its teeth and berates the heavens for its fate. It curses the day it ever entered this damned house. Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate overlooking the sparkling ocean beyond South Africa's eastern coast. Now, its Palladian windows and marble parapets, its golden domes and Romanesque towers have fallen into disrepair. Now, Akbar Manzil is where people come to forget, or to be forgotten. Teenage Sana arrives with her father, Bilal, both of them hoping for a fresh start after the tragedies that have blighted their family. But when the ghost of Sana's sister alerts her to the presence of a djinn that lingers just out of reach in the shadowy corners of the house, Sana embarks on a quest to uncover the history of her unnerving new home. Soon, her own story intertwines with that of a young woman who lived there some eighty years earlier, a woman whose tragic fate holds the key to Akbar Manzil's ultimate secret. Endlessly playful and richly imaginative, Shubnum Khan's vibrant debut delves into the transformative powers of love and grief as it explores the legacy of South Africa's complicated past.

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A haunting, a love story, a mystery and an unforgettable tale of a young girl's search for belonging combine in this dazzling South African novel

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