Season of Migration to the North
After years of study in Europe, the young narrator of Season of Migration to the North 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...
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After years of study in Europe, the young narrator of Season of Migration to the North 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.But what is the meaning of Mustafa’s shocking confession? Mustafa disappears without explanation, leaving the young man—whom he has asked to look after his wife—in an unsettled and violent no-man’s-land between Europe and Africa, tradition and innovation, holiness and defilement, and man and woman, from which no one will escape unaltered or unharmed.Season of Migration to the North is a rich and sensual work of deep honesty and incandescent lyricism. In 2001 it was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9781590173022 (1590173023)
ASIN: 1590173023
Publish date: April 14th 2009
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Pages no: 139
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Novels,
Academic,
School,
Literature,
Read For School,
Historical Fiction,
20th Century,
Religion,
African Literature,
Islam,
Post Colonial
A novella about a Sudanese man who returns from studying abroad and meets a sex-crazed psychopath who also lived in Europe and wants to tell the narrator all about his encounters with women, aka “his prey,” in which he encouraged them to exoticize him and finally drove them all to suicide with the p...
bookshelves: published-1966, winter20092010, african-continent, fraudio, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, afr-sudan, radio-3 Read from January 21 to 22, 2010 ** spoiler alert ** Season of Migration to the NorthBy Tayeb SalihTranslated by Denys Johnson-DaviesDramatised by Philip Palmer.From the descrip...
http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/2012/01/review-season-of-migration-to-north-by.html
Sometimes, I read something and I am reminded what real literature is actually like.
Sensually written, turning Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" on it's head in its narrative style, and drawing us in to the character of Mustafa Sa'eed. This book is a treasure in craft, the motifs, symbolism, and style are there. An interesting Post-Colonial read, and one that will stand the test of time...