Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
New York : M. Kesend Pub., Ltd., 1989.
Description
After years of study in Europe, the young narrator returns to his village along the Nile in the Sudan. It is the 1960s, and he is eager to make a contribution to the new postcolonial life of his country. Back home, he discovers a stranger among the familiar faces of childhood--the enigmatic Mustafa Sa'eed. Mustafa takes the young man into his confidence, telling him the story of his own years in London, of his brilliant career as an economist, and of the series of fraught and deadly relationships with European women that led to a terrible public reckoning and his return to his native land.
User reviews
LibraryThing member labfs39
Tayeb Salih was born in a village in Sudan, but left the country at the age of 24 to pursue higher education. Despite never returning to Sudan permanently, or perhaps because of it, he writes with extreme insight about post-colonialism and the schisms between the Self and Other caused by the
The book opens with an unnamed narrator arriving back in his village along the Nile after spending seven years in England earning a doctorate in poetry. His return is both a long-sought reintegration with his community and a chance to be a man of importance to his friends and family. He is surprised to find a stranger among them, Mustafa, a man without a past who has settled in the village as a farmer and married a local woman. Our narrator is a bit jealous of a stranger who knows more about current village affairs than he and is determined to learn more, especially after one night when Mustafa gets drunk and begins to recite English poetry with a perfect accent.
Mustafa, perhaps to pacify the narrator or perhaps recognizing a similarity between them, invites the narrator to his house and tells the story of his life. Mustafa’s story is also told in first person narrative and is occasionally broken by returns to the present. Tantalizing hints are dropped about a tragic love affair and murder, but it is not until the end of the book, years later, that the narrator is able to piece the entire story together. By this time, the narrator himself has suffered a horrific loss, but one caused by the inability or unwillingness to act, not by passion.
The entire book is based on imagery of the cold North and tropical South, the intellectual European and the passionate African, civilizing colonialism and superstitious natives. Yet, Salih repeatedly tells us that this is all a lie. Mustafa manipulates images and stereotypes of Africa for sexual conquest, yet he is the cold, imperious intellectual, and not the Othello he imputes himself to be. Colonialism is referred to as a disease that spreads and can never be cured, because it leaves behind a way of thinking and a language that influences post-colonial society.
Salih was lauded by a group of Arabic critics in 1976 as “the genius of the Arabic novel.” Writing in Arabic, he says, is “a matter of principle.” Fortunately, he worked extensively with the translator, Denys Johnson-Davies, to create an English translation that is lyrical and authentic. I have also read some of Salih’s shorter works, collected in the NYRB Classic [The Wedding of Zein and Other Stories], which are set in the same village. They too are beautifully written with an undercurrent of tension created by the idea of the Other and the stereotypes of the dominant sexual male and powerless, asexual (circumcised) female. With the erosion of traditions and polarization of religious ideology, Salih’s characters are adrift in a landscape that looks familiar but is studded with artifacts of colonization and the failures of post-colonial political policies. Between the beautiful language and the underlying ideas, it is no surprise to me that [Season of Migration to the North] was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics in 2001 as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.
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remains of colonial influence. Generally accepted as his masterpiece, [Season of Migration to the North] combines oral storytelling traditions with European literary forms. Moving back and forth through time and conversations, a story unfolds that is as gripping as a sexual thriller, yet is beautifully written and as full of ideas as an essay on North African identity in the 1960s. The book opens with an unnamed narrator arriving back in his village along the Nile after spending seven years in England earning a doctorate in poetry. His return is both a long-sought reintegration with his community and a chance to be a man of importance to his friends and family. He is surprised to find a stranger among them, Mustafa, a man without a past who has settled in the village as a farmer and married a local woman. Our narrator is a bit jealous of a stranger who knows more about current village affairs than he and is determined to learn more, especially after one night when Mustafa gets drunk and begins to recite English poetry with a perfect accent.
Mustafa, perhaps to pacify the narrator or perhaps recognizing a similarity between them, invites the narrator to his house and tells the story of his life. Mustafa’s story is also told in first person narrative and is occasionally broken by returns to the present. Tantalizing hints are dropped about a tragic love affair and murder, but it is not until the end of the book, years later, that the narrator is able to piece the entire story together. By this time, the narrator himself has suffered a horrific loss, but one caused by the inability or unwillingness to act, not by passion.
The entire book is based on imagery of the cold North and tropical South, the intellectual European and the passionate African, civilizing colonialism and superstitious natives. Yet, Salih repeatedly tells us that this is all a lie. Mustafa manipulates images and stereotypes of Africa for sexual conquest, yet he is the cold, imperious intellectual, and not the Othello he imputes himself to be. Colonialism is referred to as a disease that spreads and can never be cured, because it leaves behind a way of thinking and a language that influences post-colonial society.
Salih was lauded by a group of Arabic critics in 1976 as “the genius of the Arabic novel.” Writing in Arabic, he says, is “a matter of principle.” Fortunately, he worked extensively with the translator, Denys Johnson-Davies, to create an English translation that is lyrical and authentic. I have also read some of Salih’s shorter works, collected in the NYRB Classic [The Wedding of Zein and Other Stories], which are set in the same village. They too are beautifully written with an undercurrent of tension created by the idea of the Other and the stereotypes of the dominant sexual male and powerless, asexual (circumcised) female. With the erosion of traditions and polarization of religious ideology, Salih’s characters are adrift in a landscape that looks familiar but is studded with artifacts of colonization and the failures of post-colonial political policies. Between the beautiful language and the underlying ideas, it is no surprise to me that [Season of Migration to the North] was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics in 2001 as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.
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LibraryThing member FicusFan
A Season of Migration to the North is about the universal striving for something better. Unfortunately when the journey takes you out of your own culture, the price is very high.
There are 2 main characters in the book. The first is the narrator, a nameless young Sudanese man who has returned to
The Sudanese pattern is the family, the tribe or village, and the wise council of the elders, who look to the past for answers. Life is slow and patterned on the Nile which flows by the village. It brings water that sustains life and that destroys (excessive flooding). It mixes all the drops together (people) which enhances their ability to get things done. It changes course as it encounters obstacles, but it keeps moving forward. Eventually it enters the sea (death) and the ‘river’ is lost.
The Sudanese who have brains and talent are educated beyond the village level, but only so they can become little bureaucrats and say ‘yes’ in English for the new masters of the country. Those natives who are smarter, richer, and more well-connected, who live the debauched life of rich Westerners (in comparison to the austere communal life of the Sudanese village on the edge of the river, surrounded on one side by fields and the other by desert).
The narrator returns to Sudan and his village, and he is still Sudanese, but he can see the cracks and the problems in a different non-Sudanese light. He doesn’t know what to do. Should he stay Sudanese and ignore the problems, or should he bring his British education to bear, and help them, but make them less Sudanese in the process and the end result? The book ends with him unable to decide which course to take, but it ends with him in the river asking for the help of the villagers, so they can decide together what is the best course to take. Letting each person take responsibility for the course and form of their own life.
The second main character is less successful at handling the cross cultural difficulty. He is also smarter, wealthier, and more capable intellectually, but he lacked any feeling for his roots, and ultimately for any person. He worshipped knowledge, and the life of the mind. His name was Mustapha and he was the first Sudanese to go abroad to study. He awed all he met with his ease of learning, and his intelligence.
He became a ‘suitable African’ in 1960s Britain because he was seen as a ‘Black Englishman’ and was adopted and made much of by the intellectual set. But since he had no connection to his roots, he had no ability to resist the temptation to act out the ‘noble exotic former savage’. He was particularly at risk with European women who wanted the thrill of the exotic. Lacking any real emotion he settled for sensation seeking, and spent his time stalking, using and eventually abandoning many women as sexual toys. Eventually he finds a woman who turns the table and he becomes both the stalker and the prey, the one begging for attention and the one who spurns the other. Lacking control he eventually kills the woman. He is brought to trial, sentenced to 7 years, and upon his release he returns to Sudan. He lands in the same small village as the narrator, marries, has 2 sons and tries to work within the village structure to make life better. He keeps his past secret and attempts to blend Sudan/Britain, North/South, education/tradition. He dies and they are not sure if he drowned accidentally in the flood or if he committed suicide. He had wrapped his life up, given instructions to his wife, and the care of his wife and sons to the narrator just before dying.
The narrator is unable to act properly because it is not traditional to let your widow do as she wants with only an outside male (narrator) to consult. Mustapha tells the narrator to let her do as she wishes. The wife and the narrator have been influenced by the West. The village meanwhile operates on tradition. The widow has a father and brothers who expect to make important decisions for her. They agree to a marriage offer from an old wealthy man in the village. The widow does not wish to remarry. The narrator does not stand up for her rights, and for his own part in the decision making process. The marriage is forced on the widow and tragedy ensues. The narrator is left alienated from his people and his past. He tried not to force the European way on them, but his letting tradition take its course has fatal consequences to lives he could have saved.
He finally confronts the full extent of Mustapha’s Westernization: his secret room. It is an upscale British drawing room locked away behind a steel door at Mustapha’s house. It contains dark wood, stained glass, marble, statuary, paintings, photos, and walls and walls of books (all European). It was Mustapha’s temple, a place where he could pretend and worship all that he could never really be in the flesh. The Brits only accepted him like a trained monkey – a novelty, and the Sudanese would not understand or value the room and the history and culture that filled the room. Mustapha was never able to integrate the two cultures. The narrator feels the same inability, but eventually it is his connection to the humanity of his village and his emotional connection to his roots that let him take a different path from Mustapha, at the last minute.
Both the narrator and Mustapha end up with a body count. Mustapha killed his European wife, and his behavior led to several suicides. His inability to be truly European, his lack of grounding in his own culture let him act capriciously with the fate of others. The narrator's attempt at being the same person after his education as before, let him act traditionally, but it still resulted in death. Like the river he needed to change course to deal with the obstacle, but he is not strong enough to do so in time to prevent tragedy.
The book has been compared to Heart of Darkness in reverse. It also references Othello. It is a very short, very well written story that presents the dilemma of change and growth using outside cultures, and does so on a human level. You can see the impact on the lives of the characters.
There are 2 main characters in the book. The first is the narrator, a nameless young Sudanese man who has returned to
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his village after being educated in the West. He returns to a land that is no longer ruled by the colonizers – the British, but their legacy remains and not only helps, but corrupts the native Sudanese. The help is seen in the progress made to ease daily life: water wheels become pumps, cars and trucks take the place of camels and donkeys. The harm is that the pattern for living for success (not just personal but for the country) has been changed from Sudanese to British: Learning English, worshipping statistics, meetings and conferences, buildings that are not able to be finished or supported.The Sudanese pattern is the family, the tribe or village, and the wise council of the elders, who look to the past for answers. Life is slow and patterned on the Nile which flows by the village. It brings water that sustains life and that destroys (excessive flooding). It mixes all the drops together (people) which enhances their ability to get things done. It changes course as it encounters obstacles, but it keeps moving forward. Eventually it enters the sea (death) and the ‘river’ is lost.
The Sudanese who have brains and talent are educated beyond the village level, but only so they can become little bureaucrats and say ‘yes’ in English for the new masters of the country. Those natives who are smarter, richer, and more well-connected, who live the debauched life of rich Westerners (in comparison to the austere communal life of the Sudanese village on the edge of the river, surrounded on one side by fields and the other by desert).
The narrator returns to Sudan and his village, and he is still Sudanese, but he can see the cracks and the problems in a different non-Sudanese light. He doesn’t know what to do. Should he stay Sudanese and ignore the problems, or should he bring his British education to bear, and help them, but make them less Sudanese in the process and the end result? The book ends with him unable to decide which course to take, but it ends with him in the river asking for the help of the villagers, so they can decide together what is the best course to take. Letting each person take responsibility for the course and form of their own life.
The second main character is less successful at handling the cross cultural difficulty. He is also smarter, wealthier, and more capable intellectually, but he lacked any feeling for his roots, and ultimately for any person. He worshipped knowledge, and the life of the mind. His name was Mustapha and he was the first Sudanese to go abroad to study. He awed all he met with his ease of learning, and his intelligence.
He became a ‘suitable African’ in 1960s Britain because he was seen as a ‘Black Englishman’ and was adopted and made much of by the intellectual set. But since he had no connection to his roots, he had no ability to resist the temptation to act out the ‘noble exotic former savage’. He was particularly at risk with European women who wanted the thrill of the exotic. Lacking any real emotion he settled for sensation seeking, and spent his time stalking, using and eventually abandoning many women as sexual toys. Eventually he finds a woman who turns the table and he becomes both the stalker and the prey, the one begging for attention and the one who spurns the other. Lacking control he eventually kills the woman. He is brought to trial, sentenced to 7 years, and upon his release he returns to Sudan. He lands in the same small village as the narrator, marries, has 2 sons and tries to work within the village structure to make life better. He keeps his past secret and attempts to blend Sudan/Britain, North/South, education/tradition. He dies and they are not sure if he drowned accidentally in the flood or if he committed suicide. He had wrapped his life up, given instructions to his wife, and the care of his wife and sons to the narrator just before dying.
The narrator is unable to act properly because it is not traditional to let your widow do as she wants with only an outside male (narrator) to consult. Mustapha tells the narrator to let her do as she wishes. The wife and the narrator have been influenced by the West. The village meanwhile operates on tradition. The widow has a father and brothers who expect to make important decisions for her. They agree to a marriage offer from an old wealthy man in the village. The widow does not wish to remarry. The narrator does not stand up for her rights, and for his own part in the decision making process. The marriage is forced on the widow and tragedy ensues. The narrator is left alienated from his people and his past. He tried not to force the European way on them, but his letting tradition take its course has fatal consequences to lives he could have saved.
He finally confronts the full extent of Mustapha’s Westernization: his secret room. It is an upscale British drawing room locked away behind a steel door at Mustapha’s house. It contains dark wood, stained glass, marble, statuary, paintings, photos, and walls and walls of books (all European). It was Mustapha’s temple, a place where he could pretend and worship all that he could never really be in the flesh. The Brits only accepted him like a trained monkey – a novelty, and the Sudanese would not understand or value the room and the history and culture that filled the room. Mustapha was never able to integrate the two cultures. The narrator feels the same inability, but eventually it is his connection to the humanity of his village and his emotional connection to his roots that let him take a different path from Mustapha, at the last minute.
Both the narrator and Mustapha end up with a body count. Mustapha killed his European wife, and his behavior led to several suicides. His inability to be truly European, his lack of grounding in his own culture let him act capriciously with the fate of others. The narrator's attempt at being the same person after his education as before, let him act traditionally, but it still resulted in death. Like the river he needed to change course to deal with the obstacle, but he is not strong enough to do so in time to prevent tragedy.
The book has been compared to Heart of Darkness in reverse. It also references Othello. It is a very short, very well written story that presents the dilemma of change and growth using outside cultures, and does so on a human level. You can see the impact on the lives of the characters.
Show Less
LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 3.25* of five
The Book Report: A young Sudanese man, away in England studying for a university degree, returns in some disgrace to his native Nile-side village to lick his wounds. Mustafa, the village Scheherezade, tells the amorous adventures that were his years in the then-colonial power
My Review: Published in 1966, the English edition I read was translated and published in 1989. This book is hailed far and wide as THE post-colonial novel of east-west relations.
Okay. Whatever.
The Sudan has, since the book came out, imploded and become a colossally failed state. It makes me a lot less able to think about the world presented here as relevant to any kind of relations, except those of the past to the imagined present.
But gawddam is the translated text beautimous! The sentences are complex, and lovely, and the images painted across the canvas behind my eyes alternated between photorealistic idealized lacquered miniatures and Rothko-esque swathes of emotionally charged color. It sweeps the reader off his feet and plops him into the middle of a lot of sex scenery. That was the rub (!) for me, as I foreswore womenfolk as sex partners a number of years ago, and one would need to like the experience of heterosexual intercourse to appreciate fully (!) the salubriously salacious sexuality of Mustafa.
I kept wanting him to finish up already and talk about the good stuff.
Of which this is an example, from the end of the book:
I entered the water as naked as when my mother bore me. When I first touched the cold water I felt a shudder go through me, then the shudder was transformed into a sensation of wakefulness. The river was not in full spate as during the days of the flooding nor yet was it at its lowest level. … I left him talking and went out. I did not let him complete the story. … My feet led me to the river bank as the first glimmerings of dawn made their appearance in the east. I would dispel my rage by swimming.
Economical, evocative, and in the context of the tale being told, perfect as what they are...valediction.
The Book Report: A young Sudanese man, away in England studying for a university degree, returns in some disgrace to his native Nile-side village to lick his wounds. Mustafa, the village Scheherezade, tells the amorous adventures that were his years in the then-colonial power
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of England. A tragedy occurs, and life isn't the same. Or is it? Will it be? The last three pages of the book are a breathtakingly lovely statement of that question. My Review: Published in 1966, the English edition I read was translated and published in 1989. This book is hailed far and wide as THE post-colonial novel of east-west relations.
Okay. Whatever.
The Sudan has, since the book came out, imploded and become a colossally failed state. It makes me a lot less able to think about the world presented here as relevant to any kind of relations, except those of the past to the imagined present.
But gawddam is the translated text beautimous! The sentences are complex, and lovely, and the images painted across the canvas behind my eyes alternated between photorealistic idealized lacquered miniatures and Rothko-esque swathes of emotionally charged color. It sweeps the reader off his feet and plops him into the middle of a lot of sex scenery. That was the rub (!) for me, as I foreswore womenfolk as sex partners a number of years ago, and one would need to like the experience of heterosexual intercourse to appreciate fully (!) the salubriously salacious sexuality of Mustafa.
I kept wanting him to finish up already and talk about the good stuff.
Of which this is an example, from the end of the book:
I entered the water as naked as when my mother bore me. When I first touched the cold water I felt a shudder go through me, then the shudder was transformed into a sensation of wakefulness. The river was not in full spate as during the days of the flooding nor yet was it at its lowest level. … I left him talking and went out. I did not let him complete the story. … My feet led me to the river bank as the first glimmerings of dawn made their appearance in the east. I would dispel my rage by swimming.
Economical, evocative, and in the context of the tale being told, perfect as what they are...valediction.
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LibraryThing member Petroglyph
This book runs along two narrative strands. In the present, post-independent 1960s Sudan, an unnamed narrator returns to his ancestral village at a bend in the Nile after an education in London; his PhD was about an obscure English poet, which is an inevitably irrelevant training for his day job as
Form-wise, Season of migration to the north juggles its two timelines admirably. The unnamed narrator in the present tells his story linearly, whereas the flashbacks detailing Sa’eed’s life are lengthy first-person narratives given through second-hand intermediaries or letters, and they are presented non-chronologically. The former are almost entirely novel-like, the latter are definitely oral literature, and slot into place like similar passages in something like the Odyssey. Their integration is not all that smooth, though, in that transitions from one to the other draw attention to themselves in a way that cannot be but intentional. In fact, the entire novel is presented as a slightly oral version of a Western-style novel: the first line (and several other chapters later on) addresses readers directly (“Gentlemen”).
Content-wise, I am not sure what to think about this book, or more precisely, what to conclude about this book, which I think is the point: there are no easy answers. Sa’eed’s dealings with the West make heavy use of exoticising myths about Africa to gain influence among well-willing liberals and to seduce British girls. Similarly, the post-independence governmental systems in Sudan and their attempts to introduce modernity resemble Colonial forms of power too much for comfort. The unnamed narrator, though a civil servant in the capital Khartoum, feels powerless to effect any change, despite people clearly expecting this of him. His feelings towards his ancestral village importing mechanized water mills and farmer co-operatives are divided: he sees the improvement in living standards, but is reluctant to overwrite his sentimental memories. He is privately sympathetic to Bint Mahmoud, Sa’eed’s widow, though does nothing to prevent her independent streak and her shameful disobedience to her father’s ukase from escalating into irreversible damage at the hands of tradition. In other words: the tone is very much one of conflicting loyalties and an unacted-on disappointment at a lack of openness and honesty.
Season of migration to the north is a book about uneasy change, set before transitions have run their course. It’s a thoughtful mulling over opinions and feelings about those changes that are unformed and set in stone at the same time.
(The copy I read, published by NYRB Classics, features an excellent introduction by Laila Lalami.)
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a government clerk in Khartoum. The village is almost unchanged from when he left, and so he is surprised to meet Mustafa Sa’eed there, another Western-educated Sudanese, who was a professor of Economics in Interbellum London before serving a sentence for murdering his (white) wife. Sa’eed now has retired into obscurity, married a local woman and become a father. His life forms the second narrative strand, told largely through hear-say, letters and anecdotes, almost like a play within a play. Form-wise, Season of migration to the north juggles its two timelines admirably. The unnamed narrator in the present tells his story linearly, whereas the flashbacks detailing Sa’eed’s life are lengthy first-person narratives given through second-hand intermediaries or letters, and they are presented non-chronologically. The former are almost entirely novel-like, the latter are definitely oral literature, and slot into place like similar passages in something like the Odyssey. Their integration is not all that smooth, though, in that transitions from one to the other draw attention to themselves in a way that cannot be but intentional. In fact, the entire novel is presented as a slightly oral version of a Western-style novel: the first line (and several other chapters later on) addresses readers directly (“Gentlemen”).
Content-wise, I am not sure what to think about this book, or more precisely, what to conclude about this book, which I think is the point: there are no easy answers. Sa’eed’s dealings with the West make heavy use of exoticising myths about Africa to gain influence among well-willing liberals and to seduce British girls. Similarly, the post-independence governmental systems in Sudan and their attempts to introduce modernity resemble Colonial forms of power too much for comfort. The unnamed narrator, though a civil servant in the capital Khartoum, feels powerless to effect any change, despite people clearly expecting this of him. His feelings towards his ancestral village importing mechanized water mills and farmer co-operatives are divided: he sees the improvement in living standards, but is reluctant to overwrite his sentimental memories. He is privately sympathetic to Bint Mahmoud, Sa’eed’s widow, though does nothing to prevent her independent streak and her shameful disobedience to her father’s ukase from escalating into irreversible damage at the hands of tradition. In other words: the tone is very much one of conflicting loyalties and an unacted-on disappointment at a lack of openness and honesty.
Season of migration to the north is a book about uneasy change, set before transitions have run their course. It’s a thoughtful mulling over opinions and feelings about those changes that are unformed and set in stone at the same time.
(The copy I read, published by NYRB Classics, features an excellent introduction by Laila Lalami.)
Show Less
LibraryThing member upstairsgirl
This is such an odd book. So much goes unsaid and un-shown and unknown in the story we're told, and so much of what happens occurs out of the reader's sight, that not only is it hard to know how to feel about what happened, it's also hard to know what happened.
The novel is two stores - one, the
The writing in this book is beautiful, and Salih describes his landscapes, his settings and his scenery, in beautiful, vivid detail. He devotes less attention to his characters, however, and despite everything the reader learns about Mustafa Sa'eed, he remains a mystery to the reader and, I think, even to the narrator.
Part of the reason for this is perhaps that the novel is a political one, in many ways, concerned with the expectations of Europe and Africa vis-a-vis each other and very self-consciously wishing to subvert those expectations. It is a novel concerned with power and perception and with the ironic intersection between reality and nightmare that is life in Sudan. Where I think the novel loses me is in its decision to attempt to subvert expectations by fulfilling them, if that makes any sense - to use Othello as a touchstone of and symbol for offensive European romanticization of the other, the colonized, and then to play that very drama out all over again with Mustafa and his first wife. It does this in a very self-conscious way that makes the story hard to view as a story rather than as merely a vehicle for putting forth a particular view of the world.
I didn't dislike this, but it wasn't as mind-blowing an experience as I'd been led to believe it might be. I do think Salih's writing is beautiful, and I'm interested in learning more about his work, but I would not recommend this as an enjoyable read, even though parts of it are very funny and dry.
The novel is two stores - one, the
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story of a young Sudanese student sent to study in England in the twenties and convicted of murdering his English wife while still in London, and a second, forty years later, of how the same man's second wife kills her second husband and then herself. Despite the rather sensational details of both stories, neither is terribly compelling.The writing in this book is beautiful, and Salih describes his landscapes, his settings and his scenery, in beautiful, vivid detail. He devotes less attention to his characters, however, and despite everything the reader learns about Mustafa Sa'eed, he remains a mystery to the reader and, I think, even to the narrator.
Part of the reason for this is perhaps that the novel is a political one, in many ways, concerned with the expectations of Europe and Africa vis-a-vis each other and very self-consciously wishing to subvert those expectations. It is a novel concerned with power and perception and with the ironic intersection between reality and nightmare that is life in Sudan. Where I think the novel loses me is in its decision to attempt to subvert expectations by fulfilling them, if that makes any sense - to use Othello as a touchstone of and symbol for offensive European romanticization of the other, the colonized, and then to play that very drama out all over again with Mustafa and his first wife. It does this in a very self-conscious way that makes the story hard to view as a story rather than as merely a vehicle for putting forth a particular view of the world.
I didn't dislike this, but it wasn't as mind-blowing an experience as I'd been led to believe it might be. I do think Salih's writing is beautiful, and I'm interested in learning more about his work, but I would not recommend this as an enjoyable read, even though parts of it are very funny and dry.
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LibraryThing member Holland1945
"My bedroom became a theatre of war; my bed a patch of hell. When I grasped her it was like grasping at clouds, like bedding a shooting-star, like mounting the back of a Prussian military march."
Yeah, who actually talks like this? It's hard to take any of Salih's points seriously when his
Yeah, who actually talks like this? It's hard to take any of Salih's points seriously when his
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characters' dialogue is so contrived. Maybe it sounded less stupid in Arabic. One of the worst reading experiences of my life in any case. Show Less
LibraryThing member csweder
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
...
So, all I will say is that if it takes me MONTHS to get through a 169 page book....well, then there's something wrong.
...
So, all I will say is that if it takes me MONTHS to get through a 169 page book....well, then there's something wrong.
LibraryThing member VivalaErin
Read this for a Postcolonial literature class and absolutely loved it. The characters are excellent and deep. The depth of Arab-African culture and the interaction with the English was a new thing for me, and I really enjoyed the interplay between the two. Mustafa Sa'eed is a great character, and
The prose is beautiful; it always helps to bring out the beauty of the natural language when the author is part of the translation.
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his conquest of English as well as his own culture is a wonder to read.The prose is beautiful; it always helps to bring out the beauty of the natural language when the author is part of the translation.
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LibraryThing member FPdC
Classified by some critics as the most important novel in the arabic language written in the 20th century, this book is indeed a perturbing work. Revolving about the life of the misterious character Mustafá Said, the novel leads us to ponder over love, and power, and life, and emptiness... I found
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it disturbing. Show Less
LibraryThing member pamelad
After studying English literature in London the unnamed narrator returns to his village in the Sudan to find that in his absence a mysterious stranger has settled there. The new settler, Mustafa Sa'eed, has impressed many of the villagers with his hard work and intelligence, but they know little
Sa'eed had left his home as a child, to be educated by the English first in Cairo, then in London. He had studied at Oxford and gained fame for his economic theories, but remained an exotic oddity, a savage or a god, never the person in-between. The poetry of Salih's writing illustrates the gap between the English and Arabic cultures; it is distant and beautiful, almost biblical.
As the narrator discovers more about the mystery of Sa'eed, the tension builds. The final tragedy has its roots not only in Sa'eed's past, but in Arab culture itself.
Almost until the very end I thought this was a wonderful book, but the revelation of Sa'eed's English downfall was too reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence. Even so, the book is well worth reading.
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about his earlier life. Sa'eed begins to reveal to the narrator the tragedy of his former life in the London of the twenties. Sa'eed had left his home as a child, to be educated by the English first in Cairo, then in London. He had studied at Oxford and gained fame for his economic theories, but remained an exotic oddity, a savage or a god, never the person in-between. The poetry of Salih's writing illustrates the gap between the English and Arabic cultures; it is distant and beautiful, almost biblical.
As the narrator discovers more about the mystery of Sa'eed, the tension builds. The final tragedy has its roots not only in Sa'eed's past, but in Arab culture itself.
Almost until the very end I thought this was a wonderful book, but the revelation of Sa'eed's English downfall was too reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence. Even so, the book is well worth reading.
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LibraryThing member riverscollide
absolutely stunning. shows the displacement of the colonised, how their agency is shaped by the colonisers - main character: mustafa sa'eed, the protegé of sudan succumbing to the colonial disease...
LibraryThing member rmostman
A young man to his Sudanese hometown after studying abroad in England. At his homecoming ceremony, he sees a new face: Mustafa Sa’eed. He is under the impression that Mustafa is an average man that orginates from a nearby village. No one, not even his all-knowing grandfather can say much about
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the man. One evening, the narrator and Mustafa were drinking, and in a drunken stupor, Mustafa recited poetry in perfect English. The narrator believes he has been deceived, and the next day demands to know Mustafa's history. So a second story unfolds, Mustafa's own. The book transitions seamlessly and beautifully between the narrator's life and Mustafa's and how they collide in the village they share. Show Less
LibraryThing member vforcina
This novel is a very important read, being one of the few works translated into English from Arabic. That being said, the novel reads like a reverse of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." While the story is different, many similarities can be drawn between the two. Although I was not blown away by
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this novel, it is thought provoking and is worth the time it takes to read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member g0ldenboy
Mustafa Sa'eed's story is riveting. Peters out in the middle, but ends strongly. Beautiful language throughout.
LibraryThing member siafl
With just short of 140 pages this book makes some big statements and tells a far-reaching story. It metaphorizes subversive Europe and its relationship with the Arab world with the whole gamut of male and female interactions. It compares western culture with muslim beliefs and portrays the
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conflicts without and within that the author experiences after having come from a traditional Arabic background but also having been exposed to ideas of the world beyond his village. The writing is beautiful, even though there are some slightly awkward to read sentences, possibly due to difficulty in translation. Many passages are noteworthy. Show Less
LibraryThing member amerynth
I really enjoyed Tayeb Salih's noel "Season of Migration to the North." Salih is a wonderful writer -- he paints incredible word pictures. In addition, as the story progressed, it never went where I expected-- every twist and turn was a delight.
Our narrator tells the story of Mustafa Sa'eed, a
I really enjoyed the story as it unfolded.
Our narrator tells the story of Mustafa Sa'eed, a
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brilliant Sudanese student who heads to Europe and repays the conquest of Africa with his own conquest of women -- in a line that will always stick with me, he says he is going to "liberate Africa with my penis." The encounters end disasterously for the women and our narrator has a hard time reconciling the mild mannered farmer he knew with the Sa'eed of the past. I really enjoyed the story as it unfolded.
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LibraryThing member csweder
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
...
So, all I will say is that if it takes me MONTHS to get through a 169 page book....well, then there's something wrong.
...
So, all I will say is that if it takes me MONTHS to get through a 169 page book....well, then there's something wrong.
LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
'I'll liberate Africa with my penis.' Now there is a quote you won't read everyday so surely this must be a menorable book, mustn't it? Well maybe!
This book is set in 1960's Sudan and centres around a local man returning to his village on the Nile flood plain after being educated in the West. On
The moral of the story revolves mainly around the clash between Eastern and Western cultures and more importantly the role of women within it. In the West women are seen as free willed able to see whomever they like whereas in the East they are described as mere chatels to do men's bidding. But for me the story overall seemed rather flawed at this point.
Sa'eed portrays himself as a great lover but one who feels no emotional attachment to those Western women he beds but rather, to me at least, it seems that he has gotten involved in some pretty extreme sexual fantasies or fetishes. Whilst the idea of a woman taking her own life rather than live with a man who was not of her own choosing is understandable, it seemed strange that several Western women would take their own lives just because a relationship had broken down, 1 maybe but 3 I'm not so sure especially if the tales of the sexual revolution of the swinging 60's is to believed.
The descriptions of village life in the Sudan were fascinating and enlightening, I particularily enjoyed the notion of the people coming alive during the night, where truckers and bedouins get together for an impromtu party only to go their own ways at daylight. There are also hints of the damage wrought on the country by colonialism.
This is a book that had it not been on the 1001 list I would probably never heard of let alone read and is described on the blurb as 'among the six finest novels to be written in modern Arabic literature'.Not for me I fear. Whilst it was a quick and fairly easy read,I found the ending a little disappointing and overall it just didn't really gel for me, a bit like roast beef without the Yorkshire puddings or toast without dripping. OK but not great.
This book is set in 1960's Sudan and centres around a local man returning to his village on the Nile flood plain after being educated in the West. On
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arrival home, where all the village turns out to greet him as a returning hero, he discovers a mysterious stranger Mustafa Sa'eed living there. No one in the village seems to know much of Sa'eed's background other than the fact that he was born in Khartoum. The narrator soon discovers that Sa'eed like himself was educated and had lived in the West, in particular in London where he had got something of a reputation as being a ladies' man until he falls under the spell on one particular woman with whom he becomes obsessed.The moral of the story revolves mainly around the clash between Eastern and Western cultures and more importantly the role of women within it. In the West women are seen as free willed able to see whomever they like whereas in the East they are described as mere chatels to do men's bidding. But for me the story overall seemed rather flawed at this point.
Sa'eed portrays himself as a great lover but one who feels no emotional attachment to those Western women he beds but rather, to me at least, it seems that he has gotten involved in some pretty extreme sexual fantasies or fetishes. Whilst the idea of a woman taking her own life rather than live with a man who was not of her own choosing is understandable, it seemed strange that several Western women would take their own lives just because a relationship had broken down, 1 maybe but 3 I'm not so sure especially if the tales of the sexual revolution of the swinging 60's is to believed.
The descriptions of village life in the Sudan were fascinating and enlightening, I particularily enjoyed the notion of the people coming alive during the night, where truckers and bedouins get together for an impromtu party only to go their own ways at daylight. There are also hints of the damage wrought on the country by colonialism.
This is a book that had it not been on the 1001 list I would probably never heard of let alone read and is described on the blurb as 'among the six finest novels to be written in modern Arabic literature'.Not for me I fear. Whilst it was a quick and fairly easy read,I found the ending a little disappointing and overall it just didn't really gel for me, a bit like roast beef without the Yorkshire puddings or toast without dripping. OK but not great.
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LibraryThing member Kristelh
The story is set in the 1960s and is told my a young man who has returned to his village on the Nile in Sudan. Back home, he sees a stranger who is not familiar to him, Mustafa Sa'eed. Mustafa has also spent years in London and is a brilliant young man. While in London this man had a series of
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affairs with European woman, all who are in love with exotic young man from Africa. It is a tale of the violence when two cultures collide. A story of not fitting in the past and not yet ready for future. Show Less
LibraryThing member Dreesie
I enjoyed the first half of this book quite a lot. Two men, of different generations, living in the same Sudanese town. Each has traveled and spent time in England for education and work. Each has returned to Sudan--the elder came to this town, bought a farm, married, has children. The younger has
The second half begins to get odd, the last 30 pages or so are weird and weirder. I am sure this is somehow a discussion of the colonized sending their best and brightest to the colonizer for education and to work with them. And never quite fitting in or being appreciated. I am unclear, though, what the womanizing by Mustafa is really supposed to mean. How does Hosna's, his widow's, fate fit into this? Did he marry her because she was independent and strong, more like the English women he liked? And thus he was her perfect match, and she could not tolerate a more-typical Sudanese match? Can the narrator avoid the same fate as that of Mustafa? He appears to chose to.
The author, born in Sudan, lived most of his life in Europe as well, so perhaps related more to Mustafa and the narrator than to those who did not leave their town and opted not to pursue additional education. Perhaps this book is really about how he felt when returning home? So many questions!
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returned to his hometown and is as yet unmarried. They returned for different reasons.The second half begins to get odd, the last 30 pages or so are weird and weirder. I am sure this is somehow a discussion of the colonized sending their best and brightest to the colonizer for education and to work with them. And never quite fitting in or being appreciated. I am unclear, though, what the womanizing by Mustafa is really supposed to mean. How does Hosna's, his widow's, fate fit into this? Did he marry her because she was independent and strong, more like the English women he liked? And thus he was her perfect match, and she could not tolerate a more-typical Sudanese match? Can the narrator avoid the same fate as that of Mustafa? He appears to chose to.
The author, born in Sudan, lived most of his life in Europe as well, so perhaps related more to Mustafa and the narrator than to those who did not leave their town and opted not to pursue additional education. Perhaps this book is really about how he felt when returning home? So many questions!
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LibraryThing member maryreinert
I read about this book and had to track it down through interlibrary loan. I had high hopes; at times I wasn't disappointed, but at the end, I was. Actually the story of two men both born in the Sudan. The unnamed narrator returns to his home village after studying in Europe; he finds his loving
Mustafa was a sort of boy wonder in the Sudan and the first to obtain a scholarship to study in Europe after the independence of the Sudan. He is brilliant and achieves fame as a teacher. He is also a misogynist who white English women seem abnormally attracted to. He has several torrid affairs in which the women turn him into a sort of "black African god." Several commit suicide. He pursues and marries a woman named Jean Morris. That relationship is different, but he winds up murdering her; he stands trial, is imprisoned, and eventually returns to the Sudan to this unnamed village.
There a parts of the book that are beautifully written especially a scene in which there is an impromptu party in the desert at night attended by travelers, truck drivers, and local bedouins. However, there are other parts that are just not at all clear and just downright weird (for me a white woman without any experience with the Arab world). Yet, I believe I appreciate the overall focus of the book. Life is what it is, it will go on with or without us, with or without introspection. The East is different from the West; the West is different from the East; neither are better, neither are worse. Terrible things have happened, they cannot be undone.
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grandfather, his friends, and a welcoming from the family. He also meets a strange man called Mustafa Sa'eed, who was appeared some years before, settled down and married a woman in the village. Mustafa is a mysterious character but slowly the narrator earns his confidence and Mustafa tells his story. The book alternates then between the present and Mustafa's story.Mustafa was a sort of boy wonder in the Sudan and the first to obtain a scholarship to study in Europe after the independence of the Sudan. He is brilliant and achieves fame as a teacher. He is also a misogynist who white English women seem abnormally attracted to. He has several torrid affairs in which the women turn him into a sort of "black African god." Several commit suicide. He pursues and marries a woman named Jean Morris. That relationship is different, but he winds up murdering her; he stands trial, is imprisoned, and eventually returns to the Sudan to this unnamed village.
There a parts of the book that are beautifully written especially a scene in which there is an impromptu party in the desert at night attended by travelers, truck drivers, and local bedouins. However, there are other parts that are just not at all clear and just downright weird (for me a white woman without any experience with the Arab world). Yet, I believe I appreciate the overall focus of the book. Life is what it is, it will go on with or without us, with or without introspection. The East is different from the West; the West is different from the East; neither are better, neither are worse. Terrible things have happened, they cannot be undone.
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LibraryThing member stillatim
Must go on my to re-read list; I remember so little, but everyone else had such a strong reaction.
LibraryThing member DrFuriosa
An imagistic anti-narrative that confronts exotic Other myths.
LibraryThing member MarshaKT
Even though it’s a short book, I put it down and couldn’t finish it
Beautiful writing, but I lost the story and gave up
Beautiful writing, but I lost the story and gave up
LibraryThing member hemlokgang
This novel started out slowly and gradually became mind boggling! The author manages to convey the downside of colonialization and one culture being sdueced by the exotic in anither culture, and then killing off the original beauty of what seduced them in the first place. I was entranced by many of
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the Arab traditions, emotions, and euphemisms. I was absolutely delighted during the impromptu celebration of travelers and bedouins in the desert. I was appalled at the treatment of women as property. Overall, I was thoroughly engaged emotionally and intellectually. Excellent! Show Less
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Awards
Language
Original language
Arabic