Tayeb Salih

al-Ṭayyib Ṣāliḥ

An arresting work by a major Arab novelist.

Season of Migration to the North

Marion

The fact that they came to our land, I know not why, does that mean that we should poison our present and our future? Sooner or later they will leave our country, just as many people throughout history left many countries. The railways, ships, hospitals, factories and schools will be ours and we'll speak their language without either a sense of guilt or a sense of gratitude. Once again we shall be as we were - ordinary people - and if we are lies we shall be lies of our own making.

 With a combination of admiration and spite we nicknamed him "the black Englishman".

In our day the English language was the key to the future: no one had a chance without it.

What race are you?" she asked me. "Are you African or Asian?"

"I’m like Othello - Arab-African," I said to her.

'Yes," she said, looking into my face. "Your nose is like the noses of Arabs in pictures, but your hair isn't soft and jet black like that of Arabs."

"'Yes, that's me. My face is Arab like the desert of the Empty Quarter, while my head is African and teems with a mischievous childishness."

Mark these words of mine, my son. Has not the country become independent? Have we not become free men in our own country? Be sure, though, that they will direct our affairs from afar. This is because they have left behind them people who think as they do.

Look how tolerant and liberal we are! This African is just like one of us!

He has married a daughter of ours and works with us on an equal footing! If you only knew, this sort of European is no less evil than the madmen who believe in the supremacy of the white man in South Africa and in the southern states of America. The same exaggerated emotional energy bears either to the extreme right or to the extreme left.

The ships at first sailed down the Nile carrying guns not bread, and the railways were originally set up to transport troops; the schools were started so as to teach us how to say "Yes" in their language. They imported to us the germ of the greatest European violence, as seen on the Somme and at Verdun, the like of which the world has never previously known, the germ of a deadly disease that struck them more than a thousand years ago. Yes, my dear sirs, I came as an invader into your very homes: a drop of the poison which you have injected into the veins of history.

Aisha Mugo

Yes, my dear Sirs, I came as an invader into your very homes: a drop of the poison which you have injected into the veins of history. I am no Othello. Othello was a lie. 

al-Ṭayyib Ṣāliḥ

Season of migration to the North

This little book contains multitudes it’s no wonder it is part of the african post colonial literary canon. I have been re-reading books i read years ago and decided to read this again, the major themes of this book are gender violence, colonial violence, migration and alienation.

The main character of the book is a self-orientalising sudanese man who thinks dating and abusing white women is retribution for colonial violence. Salih in this book shows how both in the west and in Sudan women are impacted by patriarchal violence. Violence is a major part of gender relations in both societies.

Another interesting theme is the loss of identity and alienation both the narrator and main character Mustafa feel having grown up in Sudan but received education in London. In London hes apartment is filled with sudanese cultural relics while in he’s home in Sudan he sets up a room that can only be described as a museum to he’s life in Europe, Salih emphasises on how the books he has in Sudan are all in English not Arabic and the most hilarious of all he constructs an English fireplace in Sudan a country on the Equator lol. It’s obvious Salih is trying to portray the impact he’s western life and education has had on him but also connects him to the narrator who is also British educated.

When i read this i kept thinking of Fanon’s “White Skin Black Masks” a philosophy on how colonialism would shape relations between the white and black people and of course Edward Said’s “Orientalism”. Those books can be used to understand the themes in this one.

This little book contains multitudes it’s no wonder it is part of the african post colonial literary canon. I have been re-reading books i read years ago and decided to read this again, the major themes of this book are gender violence, colonial violence, migration and alienation.

The main character of the book is a self-orientalising sudanese man who thinks dating and abusing white women is retribution for colonial violence. Salih in this book shows how both in the west and in Sudan women are impacted by patriarchal violence. Violence is a major part of gender relations in both societies.

Another interesting theme is the loss of identity and alienation both the narrator and main character Mustafa feel having grown up in Sudan but received education in London. In London hes apartment is filled with sudanese cultural relics while in he’s home in Sudan he sets up a room that can only be described as a museum to he’s life in Europe, Salih emphasises on how the books he has in Sudan are all in English not Arabic and the most hilarious of all he constructs an English fireplace in Sudan a country on the Equator lol. It’s obvious Salih is trying to portray the impact he’s western life and education has had on him but also connects him to the narrator who is also British educated.

When i read this i kept thinking of Fanon’s “White Skin Black Masks” a philosophy on how colonialism would shape relations between the white and black people and of course Edward Said’s “Orientalism”. Those books can be used to understand the themes in this one.

Shona Tiger

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.

Kareem ElBatrawy

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.

Season of migration to the north

Donald

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.

Frederik Van den Bril

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.