** spoiler alert ** Second time reading for class. Love it just as much, if not more than I did when I first read it. This time around, I realized I had missed a moment where Isabelle Seymour was depicted in a flashback worshiping Mustafa: "O pagan god of mine. You are my god and there is no god but you" which made me pause for a moment. This plays into the whole dehumanization & mythologizing of Mustafa but also I wonder how that line was written in Arabic? Is it a play on the Muslim shahadah? If so that would be Wow. Powerful, for sure. I love picking up new things as I reread books.

An important post-colonial read, this had been on my TBR for a very long time. I didn’t expect what I found, though, when I finally read it: a beautiful, poetic, and lyrical book, full of truth and wisdom. Also some amusing asides as the story built up to its tense central story, and rather horrifying conclusion. I loved this book, and I was transported to and immersed in Sudan for the duration. This is also the first book I’d recommend to anyone trying to understand the damage colonialism has wrought and continues to wreak on the minds on the formerly colonised. It’s also just a wonderful story.

سيظل الإنسان مشتت بين ما هو عليه و بين رغبته فى تذوق المجهول، يلوم الحياة أنها إختارت له طريقه ثم يقرر أن لا يبالى و يستغلها بكل ما فيها، تظل موروثات عقيمة لا تنجب إنسانية هى المتحكمة فى العقول المتوقفة عن العمل و الضمائر الساعية للراحة مهما كان الثمن، العشق الزائف وسيلة و ليس غاية لكل من يعانى من الحقد و يود الإنتقام لكل ما تم سلبه منه فى إنسانيته.

This would be 3 1/2 stars if such a rating were possible here. This is a pretty fucked up book, and with my ignorance of Sudanese culture and Islam I probably didn't understand half of it. Rape, murder, colonialism, etc.

Once in a while you come across this special kind of novel that seems to be able to bend time, or rather to slow it down. Rather than a story, these books present you with a given moment in time. Everything slows down, and the books gets a dream-like quality, but the picture it paints is all too vivid. Most importantly, a lot has passed before the novel and a lot will pass after that. It conjures up a world that is still there, it presents you characters that actually exist. Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North is that kind of book. The other novels I could think of that do this are V.S. Naipaul's enchanting book 'A Bend in the River' or Marquez' masterpiece 100 Years of Solitude. I picked it up by chance in a bookshop in Berlin because I liked the cover and the description and most of all how the novel started: "It was, gentlemen, after a long absence, seven years to be exact, during which time I was studying in Europe - that I returned to my people". The author struck me with this bold and confident voice - there's a powerful knack for melancholia and wisdom there that I absolutely love. The novel for sure is an important exploration of Edward Said's concept of Orientalism. The book tells the story of Mustafa Sa'eed, who thinks he has found the key to using the Western view of (and longing for) the Orient to his (sexual) advantage but ultimately it leads to his own tragic demise. No doubt a very important book in understanding our post-colonial world. The ending of the book leaves you gasping for air, just like the narrator. A book that I will no doubt want to reread sooner or later.