Солтүстікке Көші-қон Маусымы

1966 novel by Tayeb Salih

Season of Migration to the North (موسم الهجرة إلى الشمال ) is a classic postcolonial Arabic novel by the Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, published in 1966; it is the novel for which he is best known. It was first published in the Beirut journal Hiwâr. The main concern of the novel is with the impact of British colonialism and European modernity on rural African societies in general and Sudanese culture and identity in particular. His novel reflects the conflicts of modern Sudan and depicts the brutal history of European colonialism as shaping the reality of contemporary Sudanese society. Damascus based Arab Literary Academy named it one of the best novels in Arabic of the twentieth century. Mawsim al Hijrah ilâ al Shamâl is considered to be an important turning point in the development of postcolonial narratives that focus on the encounter between East and West. Salih was fluent in both English and Arabic, but chose to pen this novel in Arabic. The English translation by Denys Johnson Davies was published in 1969 as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. The novel is a counternarrative 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 condominium, 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.

Mawsim al Hijrah ilâ al Shamâl is the story of the “traveled man,” the African who has returned from schooling abroad, told to an unspecified audience by an unnamed narrator. The narrator returns to his Sudanese village of Wad Hamid on the Nile in the 1950s after writing a doctoral thesis on ‘the life of an obscure English poet.’ Mustafa Sa'eed, the main protagonist of the novel, is a child of British colonialism, and a fruit of colonial education. He is also a monstrous product of his time. The unnamed narrator is eager to make a contribution to the new postcolonial life of his country.

The novel can be related in many ways to the seminal works of Frantz Fanon, specifically Black Skin, White Masks. Fanon discusses the politics of desire between black men and white women, as Salih also explores extensively in the relationships of Mustafa Sa'eed. Also, it has been compared in many ways to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Season of Migration to the North was initially published in 1966, in serialized form, by Hiwar, a Beirut based literary magazine that was covertly established and funded by the CIA. The novel was banned in the author's native Sudan for a period of time starting in 1983 because its graphic sexual imagery offended the Islamic government. Today the novel is readily available in Sudan.

Season of Migration to the North, adapted and directed by Ouriel Zohar, starring Mohammed Bakri. Bakri won the award for best actor in the 1993 Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre.