Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Djinn’s Apple – an award-winning YA murder mystery set in the golden age of Baghdad.
As a teenager, the books that I read – and the stories that I enjoyed on film or the TV screen – were almost exclusively filled with characters who were white British, sometimes American or European, and written by authors who fell very firmly into the same category. In anything that was set outside of these areas that did feature non-white players, they were almost certainly cast in the role of the bad guy or a servant – something that I didn’t really notice at the time but that older, wiser, me is now greatly saddened by.
In this beautiful new title from Algerian novelist and Arabic language professor Djamila Morani, we are transported over a millennium back in time to a Baghdad ruled by caliph Harun Al-Rasid, with whom you may be familiar due to his association with the stories of the 1,001 Nights. A read that is part historical fiction, part romance and part murder mystery, younger me would’ve been spellbound by the richness of its storyline and how different it was from my then typical fare and, although they may not realise it, its intended audience are very fortunate to take reads like this for granted.
For 12-year-old Nardeen, life is good in the home she shares with her parents and siblings as she spends her days reading her doctor father’s medical books until the night that a ruthless gang bursts in and leaves her orphaned and alone. Not understanding why her family has been targeted, two days later Nardeen wakes up sick in the Bimaristan (hospital), where she is adopted by Muallim Ishaq, a professor and respected scholar, who brings her up as his student and continues her medical eduction.
As she grows older, in a society where doctors are exclusively men and nurses are always women, can Nardeen find her place and continue her father’s work as he would’ve wished or is she destined not to live out her dream to join the profession to which he was proud to belong. And with the men who slaughtered her family yet to face justice, can she bypass her passion for healing and the preservation of human life to track down her father’s murderer and carry out the revenge that her heart demands?
Nardeen is a great heroine – one who is sharply intelligent, full of curiosity and one whose powers of observation and deduction are vastly superior to her male peers. Initially dutiful to Ishaq, as she was to her father, as she moves towards womanhood she starts to gain more confidence in her own medical knowledge and skills despite the opposition she faces from some quarters – opposition that, sadly, many young women still come up against – and does not allow the prejudice of those around her to determine her fate. Although her story is one that is set centuries ago, in many ways it is completely modern and today’s readers will not find it difficult to relate to it.
Education has improved in many respects since I was young, so that the contribution to science and knowledge from peoples outside of Europe is gradually becoming increasingly recognised and although this is – obviously – a work of fiction, at the end of the book there are notes about the time within which it is set and the importance of the Bimaristan in treating the sick and injured, which I found really interesting.
At 160 pages, this YA title is shorter than many middle grades and this together with its beautiful cover will ensure that it has enormous shelf appeal. I really enjoyed it and am hugely grateful to both publisher Neem Tree Press and to TheWriteReads for my gifted copy of the book and for inviting me to take part in the blog tour. The Djinn’s Apple is on sale now. Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the tour:
Mrs Sydney's Famous World's Smallest Library 