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 explores the transportive powers
of love and grief bringing to life the unique history of South Africa's Indian diaspora.
