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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
In Ali Hamdoun’s Habracadabrah, after surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Shinobu stays alive way beyond his expected lifespan. This is in the care of Seiren, who moves him to an isolated forest home where his damaged body requires constant treatment so he can keep breathing and functioning. As he adjusts to a life that is now physically limited and wholly dependent, a separate path follows Maria. Her life is shaped by famine, displacement, and war before she reaches the Dead Sea and has an encounter that alters her perception of time and physical existence. Her journey continues across regions until it brings her to the same remote location where Shinobu lives. Both lives move toward a shared point shaped by survival, loss, and endurance, where their separate trajectories intersect through circumstances neither fully understands.
Ali Hamdoun’s Habracadabrah is a unique literary novel, well written and completely in a category of its own with regard to Hamdoun's use of prose in a multi-structured storyline. Shinobu is the technical heart, and Hamdoun fleshes the character out by leaning into endurance that is physical and inward at once. Seiren is the most fascinating to me, and their guidance shows a personality of patience, but is not passive, while their insistence on walking despite pain reveals a stubborn commitment to remain present. Where Hamdoun truly shines is in his ability to craft visual settings, from a Siberian homestead surrounded by peaty ground and animal enclosures to a forest house where medical routines and daily walks shape life after devastation. This book will suit readers interested in fiction blended with speculative elements, particularly those drawn to stories that connect human strength with events that stretch across time and geography.
