Season of Migration to the North
Front cover of Penguin Classics edition of the novel
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| Author | Tayeb Salih |
|---|---|
| Original title |
موسم الهجرة إلى الشمال Mawsim al-Hiǧra ilā ash-Shamāl' |
| Translator | Denys Johnson-Davis |
| Country | Sudan |
| Language | Arabic |
| Publisher | Tayeb Salih |
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Publication date
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1966 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 169 pp (Heinemann edition) |
| ISBN | |
Season of Migration to the North (Arabic: موسم الهجرة إلى الشمال Mawsim al-Hiǧra ilā ash-Shamāl) is a classic post-colonial Sudanese novel by the novelist Tayeb Salih. Originally published in Arabic in 1966, it has since been translated into more than twenty languages. Salih was fluent in both English and Arabic, but chose to pen this novel in Arabic. The English translation was published in 1969 as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. The novel is a counter narrative to Heart of Darkness. It was described by Edward Said as one of the six great novels in Arabic literature. In 2001 it was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.
In January 1899, a compendium, or joint-authority, was established to rule over Sudan by Britain and Egypt. Sudan gained independence in 1956, but was then engulfed in two prolonged civil wars for much of the remainder of the 20th century. This novel is set in the 1960s, a significant and tumultuous time in Sudan's history.
The unnamed narrator has returned to his native village in the Sudan after seven years in England furthering his education. It is the 1960s, and he is eager to make a contribution to the new postcolonial life of his country.
On his arrival home, the Narrator encounters a new villager named Mustafa Sa'eed who exhibits none of the adulation for his achievements that most others do, and he displays an antagonistically aloof nature. Mustafa betrays his past one drunken evening by wistfully reciting poetry in fluent English, leaving the narrator resolute to discover the stranger's identity. The Narrator later asks Mustafa about his past, and Mustafa tells the Narrator much of his story, often saying "I am no Othello, Othello was a lie," as well as "I am a lie."
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