Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

 

One of the best books I read this semester was Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih. It is certainly one of my favorite books, and I would recommend it to anyone! Due to some graphic and violent images, I would not necessarily recommend it to anyone younger than 16 as there are some very disturbing–albeit necessary–moments in the text. Season of Migration is a postcolonial revision of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and although this comparison is not directly made, it is fairly obvious. The narrator clearly represents Marlow, and Mustafa Sa’eed represents the Kurtz figure.

Homi K. Bhabha, in his essay “Cultural Diversity and Cultural Differences,” argues that once it is understood that “all cultural statements and systems are constructed” in what Bhabha refers to as a Third Space, “the inherent originality or ‘purity’ of cultures” becomes “untenable, even before we resort to empirical historical instances that demonstrate their hybridity”(Bhabha 2). In other words, by understanding that the cultural ideas, hierarchies, and traditions of respective cultures synthesize in a Third Space, one realizes that a pure culture does not exist, only a hybrid one, especially in a postcolonial world. This argument leads Bhabha to describe his desire for an “international culture” based on “the inscriptions and articulation of culture’s hybridity”(2). Bhabha advocates for an understanding of culture as a hybrid product of both historical tradition and colonial influence. He supports his argument with Frantz Fanon’s belief that “liberatory ‘people’” have a “hybrid identity,” meaning that those most likely to make change are influenced by and identify with hybridity (2). In Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North, Mustafa represents a “been-to:” a character who has been to Britain and returned to Africa. In this sense, he is a highly hybridized character.

Mustafa cannot come to terms with his hybridity in the way that Bhabha and Fanon advocate, and so he fails to overcome his postcolonial “hang-ups. He declares “‘I’ll liberate Africa with my penis”’ and proceeds to attempt to do so by exorcizing himself in his relationships with multiple British women including Ann Hammond, Isabella Seymour, Sheila Greenwood, and finally, Jean Morris.

Skip this section if you plan to read this book.

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Mustafa’s marriage with Jean culminates in a sexual murder-suicide pact in which Mustafa penetrates Jean for the last time both sexually and violently using a knife, in an attempt to take on the role of the colonial and thereby overcome colonialism. This attempt is mirrored by the murder-suicide that his second wife, Hosna Bint Mahmoud, commits against her new husband after Mustafa’s death, Wad Rayyes, during their first sexual interaction.

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Okay, keep reading!

Ultimately, Salih suggests the impossibility of overcoming postcolonialism in the sexual sphere, and rejects Mustafa’s notions of using sex to liberate himself. In doing so, he undermines the colonial mission and recognizes its dangerous effects on both the colonial and the colonized. I would recommend this novel to anyone who is interested in postcolonialism, or even just in fantastic literature. Be warned, though. It is not for the faint of heart.

*Season of Migration to the North was originally published in Arabic in 1966. My particular copy was published by The New York Review of Books in 1969.

Bhabha, Homi K. “Cultural Diversity and Cultural Differences.” Atlas of Transformation. Web. 29 April 2013.

(Reviewed by Mae)