Diary of a Djinn: A Novel

The all-knowing djinn of ancient lore can adopt many forms, but there are times when it chooses the limits of one body, one life. In this bewitching first novel, a djinn takes up residence in a restlessly brilliant woman, guiding her choices in life and love as she chases the satisfaction that eludes her—from a cloistered Florentine boarding school to the glamour of a Milan fashion house to a life beyond her means in 1990s Manhattan. She is as skilled at observing the worlds she moves through as her djinn is skilled at observing her, but an ever-growing self-awareness does not help her to realize her heart’s desires. That is, until the wise djinn puts her in the path of the Princess: imperious octogenarian and mother of a man she can never fully possess. With Diary of a Djinn, Alhadeff has given us a novel of playful intelligence and insight, and a poignant testimony to love’s unpredictable unfolding.

Book Magazine

The narrator of this debut novel is a chic young woman working in the fashion industry, first in Milan, then in New York, who leads a stylish but austere existence. After a brief, wounding affair with a well-dressed perfectionist, she finds intermittent bliss with a married Italian nobleman. Throughout the book, the narrator cultivates an emotional minimalism. Just as an aesthete might place a single jade vase in an all-white room, her relationships are few and carefully shaped, bright patches in a whiteness of solitude. The narrator's greatest attachment, it emerges, is to her lover's mother, the Princess, a woman much like herself. Nearly ninety, and flawlessly dressed in "Courrèges, Givenchy, Saint Laurent," the Princess has equivalently impeccable "mental furnishings" of Shakespeare, Leopardi, Chekhov and Pound. Although the Princess is dying and in pain, her motto—that life should be amusing and free of self-pity—gives her final days a sense of gaiety, even triumph. Alhadeff's book mingles spontaneity and precision in ways that give its simplest moments the trembling brilliance of an unshed tear.

Gini Alhadeff grew up in Egypt, the Sudan, Italy, and Japan. She studied fine art and photography at Harrow in England and at Pratt Institute in New York. She has worked as a translator, founded two literary reviews, Normal and XXIst Century, and is a contributing editor for Travel + Leisure. Alhadeff is the author of a memoir, The Sun at Midday: Tales of a Mediterranean Family. She lives in New York City.