Caught between worlds. That is how the author, Tayeb Salih, portrays the enigmatic and brilliant Mustafa Saeed, a Sudanese man become libertine who goes to Cairo and eventually to London to be educated in the post colonial era. The imagery is brilliant and the novel is full of terrific insights into the paradoxical world of the colonized to their colonizers; Arabs and Europeans; and men and women. Many comparisons of this novel have been made with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and it could be said that there is a little of Kurtz in Saeed, perhaps in their reverse travels. Either way, tragedy abounds in Salih’s novel, some of which you see coming and some which you don’t.This short 139 page novel in its English translation (the novel was published in Arabic in 1966 and translated into English in 1969 by Denys Johnson-Davies) can be read in a couple of hours I suppose, but it took me several days to read. While superbly written its narrative format can throw some readers and was somewhat tedious for me. Also the writing, while exquisite, is somewhat like a thin fog. As I was reading it I was sure that I was missing some of the more subtle nuances just beyond my grasp which I am sure Salih intended with his lyrical prose.
Either way, this novel is a compelling read. It is a complex book which can be read for myriad reasons beginning with the love of a good mystery to interest in politics, sociology, geography or history.
Here is what the New York Times had to say about it.
"Season of Migration to the North is a brilliant miniature of the plight of Arabs and Africans who find themselves no longer sustained by their past and not yet incorporated into a viable future. Swift and astonishing in its prose, this novel is more instructive than any number of academic books."
And here is The Observer (London).
"An Arabian Nights in reverse, enclosing a pithy moral about international misconceptions and delusions. Powerfully and poetically written and splendidly translated by Denys Johnson-Davies."
2 comments:
The book you introduce seems wonderful, special its "subtle nuances", I think that!
"miniature" - I read about it in "My Name is Red" of Orhan Pamuk. It's a interesting kind of arts in Arabic culture.
"An Arabian Nights in reverse" - I don't quite understand its meaning! Do they talk about "the length" of this book? Because this book is shorter than "The Arabian Nights", but it still has the richly content!?
I'm not sure, but I think you are right about the meaning in the review. The book is very short compared to the Arabian Nights (approximately a fifth of its length) and I think they are saying that while it is compact it carries the same intensity of imagery as the longer classic.
In 2001 Season of Migration to the North was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.
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