Reading guide for The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

Reading Guide Questions

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. A bildungsroman, which roughly translates to a "novel of formation," is defined as a coming-of-age novel that explores how a protagonist develops morally and psychologically, from childhood to adulthood. Would you say The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a bildungsroman?
2. The novel features a wide range of eccentric characters, each with their own story of love and loss. How does each character play a key role in Sana's character arc and that of the mystery at the heart of the novel?
3. Many of those eccentric characters are funny! What role does humor play in the novel?
4. Akbar Manzil, too, has a personality, as well as memories of its own. In what ways is the mansion a key character in the book?
5. Along with carefully balancing her host of characters, Khan weaves the present and the past expertly throughout the book, such that each part has its own building arc, as does the novel as a whole. Consider the choices Khan made about the placement of key scenes, like when she introduced the past narrative for the first time, or when she shared Jahanara Begum's cruel choice, or, more generally, when she chooses to break from present to past, and vice versa. What effect does this have on pacing? What effect does it have on holding us in suspense or arresting our attention?
6. Our protagonist Sana has always been enamored by love, collecting stories and memorabilia since her childhood as she sought to understand what it was. Her time at Akbar Manzil is spent interviewing its residents, noting down their experiences and definitions of love. What do you think love is? How was your concept of it affirmed or challenged throughout the novel? Whose, if anybody's, love story or perspective did you most identify with?
7. Throughout The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, Sana repeatedly tells her sister to leave, yet her sister consistently returns. After one of her interviews with Zuleikha, where the pianist dismisses love entirely, Sana thinks to herself that she disagrees—that "[l]ove, to her, was the thing that stayed" (pg. 111). How does this concept apply to her relationship with her sister? If love is the thing that stays, is it always a good thing?
8. The djinn fell madly for Meena—an affection that was never returned. Was the djinn's love true, despite never being able to truly speak to or be known by Meena? What does love need for it to be true? Do you believe the djinn found peace by the end of the novel?
9. Sana becomes entirely consumed by the history of Akbar Manzil and Meena Begum's life, despite having no true connection to either. When she believes she'll never be able to find the truth, she becomes deeply disillusioned by love entirely, turning into a ghost of herself. Why do you think this story and Meena were so important to Sana? What was she searching for?
10. Throughout The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, Sana has a lingering resentment for her mother, believing that her mother hated her. How does this perspective tie into her fascination with Meena Begum?
11. This resentment affects even her relationship with her father. How do Sana and Bilal find their way back to each other by the end of the novel?
12. On page 55, while Sana is speaking to Doctor, she sees him grow into a "strong young man with wild hair and bright eyes" as he speaks about his now-gone wife, noting that "a memory can make you whole." What effect do memories have on the characters in The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years?
13. In some ways, ghosts can be considered living memories. Consider the words "a memory can make you whole" as it applies to Sana's sister. Would Sana be left incomplete without her? How about the djinn? How do the djinn's materializations—when it in "fits of great despair ... begins to change shape" and becomes Meena—connect with this concept of memory?
14. Khan never gives a name to Sana's sister. Why might that be? What effect does that choice have?
15. Grief and shame are explored deeply in the novel—in many ways, the other side of the coin, from love. How can love, grief, and shame be connected?
16. Consider Doctor's arc, and how long he carried his own grief and shame. Do you think what happened at Akbar Manzil was his fault? Do you think he found closure?
17. Jahanara Begum aspires to a privileged colonial elite—"although [she] is Indian, she feels quite English and she often thinks she was born into the wrong skin" (pg. 95). Where do you think this self-concept derives from? In what ways is it problematic? How does this perspective still apply to contemporary times? Do you think we're meant to feel empathy for Jahanara Begum?
18. If you yourself are multicultural, have you likewise struggled between the culture you inherited and the culture you grew up around? In what ways? What might that struggle be rooted in?
19. Regardless of your multicultural identity, how has others' treatment of you and the societal messaging that surrounds you affected your self-concept? How has that shifted from childhood to adulthood?
20. The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years could be considered a gothic horror, a mystery, a speculative novel, and/or a love story. What do you think it is or isn't? Why?
21. By the end of the novel, the box rattling in Sana's chest finally opens. Why do you think that is?
22. One of The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years' major themes is the conflict between choice and fate. Are those two ideas always distinct in the novel?
23. On a similar note—do you believe in Signs?
24. While his daughter meditates on love, Bilal searches constantly for Home, saying that "Home can also be a memory if you return to it enough" (pg. 15). What are some of the Homes we see in The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years?
25. What does Home mean to you?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Viking. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.