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"An Arabian Nights in reverse; the brilliant student of an earlier generation returns to his Sudanese village; obsessed with the mysterious West and a desire to bite the hand that has half-fed him, has led him to London and the beds of women with similar obsessions about the mysterious East."-The Observer
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Product Description
'SEASON OF MIGRATION TO THE NORTH-An Arabian Nights in reverse, enclosing a pithy moral about international misconceptions and delusions. The brilliant student of an earlier generation returns to his Sudanese village; obsession with the mysterious West and a desire to bite the hand that has half-fed him, has led him to London and the beds of women with similar obsessions about the mysterious East. He kills them at the point of ecstasy and the Occident, in its turn, destroys him. Powerfully and poetically written and splendidly translated by Denys Johnson-Davies.' Observer
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First Sentence
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. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Set in Sudan c1960, Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North deserves a wider readership. At 130 odd pages it is short but packs a powerful punch for it highlights the contrast between Arab/African and European cultures during the turbulent period of the 1950's and 1960's in Africa.
Mustafa Sa'eed has settled into village life at the age of 50 with a young wife and two boys but little is known about him since his arrival 5 years earlier. The narrator meets Mustafa and discovers that Mustafa had been an unusually gifted young man who had made a dramatic impact in England in the 1920's courted by the aristocrats and intelligentsia. Mustafa took advantage of the loose morals of many English women which contrasts decisively with his new tranquil life with his young Muslim Sudanese wife....but this short novella has a bitter twist to its tale. The narrative draws a rich collection of descriptive pictures from Mustapha's locked room the narrator enters to the amusing elders ribbing each other over their sexual expertise. This book has so many vignettes to savour but an underlying depth which understandably has it classified as a Classic.
Mustafa Sa'eed has settled into village life at the age of 50 with a young wife and two boys but little is known about him since his arrival 5 years earlier. The narrator meets Mustafa and discovers that Mustafa had been an unusually gifted young man who had made a dramatic impact in England in the 1920's courted by the aristocrats and intelligentsia. Mustafa took advantage of the loose morals of many English women which contrasts decisively with his new tranquil life with his young Muslim Sudanese wife....but this short novella has a bitter twist to its tale. The narrative draws a rich collection of descriptive pictures from Mustapha's locked room the narrator enters to the amusing elders ribbing each other over their sexual expertise. This book has so many vignettes to savour but an underlying depth which understandably has it classified as a Classic.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Season of Migration To The North has famously been described as the Heart of Darkness in reverse, where an African protagonist travels to London inadvertently exploiting and destroying the women he befriends. But it became apparent to me, reading this masterpiece, albeit in English translation, that Tayeb Salih had created something more fantastical than Conrad had done in his original, but arguably flawed novel. Salih plays with temporal linearity, jumping back and fore between Knightsbridge and a small but intensely socially rich Sudanese village on the banks of the river Nile; the identity of the narrator changes, a common device in Arabic literature; the climax to the story is brilliantly hinted at throughout the book, and previewed in a false, or dual, climax, a horrible love murder. Season really bowled me over, and it absorbed me from the moment I started reading it; the peripheral details, descriptions and detours interested me as much as the main plot, which was an unlikely though fascinating concoction. There is a memorable description of an English District Commissioner: [he] "...was a god who had a free hand over an area larger than the whole of the British Isles..." But there is no resentment of the British in Salih's tale; resentment is saved for the Sudanese comprador class, referred to as "nonentities" and "nobodies" by a character in the village. An examination of the complex East-West relationship, an artificial construct, lies at the core of the book, and simple, sweeping judgments are not held by any of the characters. Reading Season of Migration To The North takes the reader on a journey into the enormously complex, psychologically fraught, and deeply emotionally intertwined relationship between coloniser and colonised.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This beautifully written translation (so presumably the original language is also beautiful) can be read in one sitting, although rushing it is likely to mean getting less out of it. Most vivid for me are the descriptions of life in a remote village on the floodplain of the Nile, and the terrible heat of the Saharan sun. I particularly like the scene at nightfall in the desert, when it was at last cool enough for people to come alive, so that, nomads and travellers alike, were drawn together in an impromptu feast of eating and dancing.
However, I think the aim of the story is to explore the interaction between "western" and North African Islamic culture. In some ways it seems to me quite dated: published in the 60s, it describes a Britain that was still imperialist, very class divided and far less "multicultural" and concerned with issues of sexual and racial equality than is now the case. So, what I take to be one man's fictional taking of vengeance on the west by seducing and betraying unstable English women seems in some ways less shocking than the current real situation in which disaffected muslims may be driven to terrorism. "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is more relevant now.
I do not fully understand this work. The ways in which talented people from developing countries may suffer or be damaged by colonisation seemed to me to get muddled up with the individual drama of a Mustafa, a flawed, even psychopathic individual who gets drawn into sexual violence for reasons which may have little to do with the arrogance of westerners encountered - some of whom were good to him, plus there is the contrast of the narrator who seems able to cope with the cultural shock of being educated in the west.
The climax of the book in which the narrator enters the locked room to find Mustafa's ultimate secrets seemed to me to be exaggerated and ludicrous.
In the end, I am left a little disappointed, since the book begins with such promise. The final chapter is an interesting allegory, in which perhaps the Nile - powerful life giver yet also potential destroyer is likened to "alien western culture".
I can see that this book can give rise to stimulating discussion e.g. about the position of women - their abuse in both "north" and "south" - as Salih chooses to make the division, the respective values of different cultures - even what the novel is really about. However, I could wish that the author had not chosen to focus so much on the sexual relations between apparently disturbed individuals.
However, I think the aim of the story is to explore the interaction between "western" and North African Islamic culture. In some ways it seems to me quite dated: published in the 60s, it describes a Britain that was still imperialist, very class divided and far less "multicultural" and concerned with issues of sexual and racial equality than is now the case. So, what I take to be one man's fictional taking of vengeance on the west by seducing and betraying unstable English women seems in some ways less shocking than the current real situation in which disaffected muslims may be driven to terrorism. "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is more relevant now.
I do not fully understand this work. The ways in which talented people from developing countries may suffer or be damaged by colonisation seemed to me to get muddled up with the individual drama of a Mustafa, a flawed, even psychopathic individual who gets drawn into sexual violence for reasons which may have little to do with the arrogance of westerners encountered - some of whom were good to him, plus there is the contrast of the narrator who seems able to cope with the cultural shock of being educated in the west.
The climax of the book in which the narrator enters the locked room to find Mustafa's ultimate secrets seemed to me to be exaggerated and ludicrous.
In the end, I am left a little disappointed, since the book begins with such promise. The final chapter is an interesting allegory, in which perhaps the Nile - powerful life giver yet also potential destroyer is likened to "alien western culture".
I can see that this book can give rise to stimulating discussion e.g. about the position of women - their abuse in both "north" and "south" - as Salih chooses to make the division, the respective values of different cultures - even what the novel is really about. However, I could wish that the author had not chosen to focus so much on the sexual relations between apparently disturbed individuals.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
"...halfway between north and south..."
Tayeb Salih concludes his classic work with the subject phrase on the next to last page, and it does capture the essence of this masterful novel. Read more
Published 8 months ago by John P. Jones III
Intriguing insight into the Sudanese culture and mindset, but not sure...
"Season of Migration to the North" (an effective, although a little cumbersome, English title) is worth reading for its insight into 1960s Sudan; I've never read a book by a... Read more
Published 11 months ago by unlikely_heroine
Season of Migration to the North (Penguin Modern Classics)
Charming book - very evocotive and revealing of the time, culture and religion. I can imagine why it has caused controversy over the decades it has been published..... Read more
Published 12 months ago by S. Ltd
Thought provoking
You could read this novel as a story of a man who became psychopathic and twisted by being taken away from his home and family 'for his own good', and who committed a dreadful... Read more
Published 19 months ago by K. Fearon
Great Book from Africa
It is really a great book from Africa Season of Migration to the North (Penguin Modern Classics)about relations between the east and the west and how they face each other. Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2010 by habib alshammari
Simple life vs purpose of education
A man returns after having studied in England to his native village somewhere along the Nile in Sudan. Read more
Published on 31 Aug 2009 by Jesper Jorgensen
less than the sum of its parts
ONe of the "1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die" (international edition), and also, according to the cover of the penguin book, voted the best Arab novel of all time. Read more
Published on 14 July 2009 by William Jordan
Awesome
This book is extremely interesting and the writer did a brilliant job work of presenting the conflicts in the protagonist's soul. Read more
Published on 31 May 2005 by Mikhail
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