Season of Migration to the North

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Season of Migration to the North
Season of Migration to the North
Author Al-Tayyib Salih
Original title (if not in English) موسم الهجرة إلي الشمال
Language Arabic
Publisher Al-Tayyib Salih
Released 1966
ISBN 0-435-90630-5


Season of Migration to the North (Arabic: موسم الهجرة إلي الشمال ) is a classical Sudanese novel that was translated from Arabic to English and French.

Published in 1966 by the author Al-Tayyib Salih, Season of Migration to the North charts the individuation of the narrator, who has returned to his native village in the Sudan having spent seven years in England furthering his education.

Upon his arrival in the village, he encounters a new villager who exhibits none of the adulation for his achievements that the others do, and displays an aloof nature which antagonises the narrator. The villager betrays his past one drunken evening by wistfully reciting poetry in fluent English, and leaves the narrator resolute to discover the stranger's identity.

What the narrator then discovers about the stranger, Mustafa Sa'eed, awakens in him great curiosity, despair and anger, and the pair's lives entwine perilously, even after the disappearance of Mustafa. The stories of Mustafa's past life in England, and the repercussions they have on the village around him take their toll on the narrator, who is driven to the very edge of sanity. It is only finally, floating in the river Nile, precariously between life and death, that the narrator makes the conscious choice to rid himself of Mustafa's lingering presence, and to stand as an influential individual in his own right.

[edit] Editions in print

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../s/e/a/Season_of_Migration_to_the_North_9f99.html"