hi everyone in this video i'll discuss
season of migration to the north by
tayyip sally the greatest sudanese
author it is considered a classic novel
of african and arabic literature
in this video i'll summarize it for you
then i'll analyze its themes and
storytelling as usual let me first tell
you some fascinating facts about sudan
and mr
taip saleh himself
sudan his full name is bilad al-sudan
which means the land of the blacks in
arabic and its capital
khartoum means elephant's trunk it was a
british colony and part of egypt until
it got independence in 1955. in 2011
sudan was divided into two countries the
arab north and the sub-saharan african
south
they know it being mostly muslims and in
south being mostly christians or
believers of native animist religions
sudan is famous for the river nile
having more
permits in egypt more sand and extreme
heat and dryness
uh taipsalli was born in 1929 and died
in 2009
meaning he lived for exactly 80 years if
my math is correct
he studied at the university of london
and worked for the bbc world service
arabic section
now back to the novel it was first
published in 1966 in arabic the novel
was banned in sudan
due to its sexual content but now it's
available what is the story
our narrator is a man who returns to his
village in sudan after years of studying
in england he meets a new man in the
village and he doesn't recognize him
so he picks his interest one night when
they're both
drunk mustapha this new person in the
village
lets his guard down and resigns an
english poem our narrator becomes quite
suspicious
who is this man who lives in the small
village in sudan yet recites english
poem
later he confronts mustafa and mustafar
tells him his story as a child he grew
up without a father and a very hands-off
mother one day he meets a man who
recruits him to attend an english school
set up by the british at this school he
excels so much so
that he is soon sent to cairo to study
there and from there
he ends up in a university in england
this all sounds a very heartwarming
story of a village boy
who rose to become an excellent
economist for the british colonial
authority
but it turns out this is not a story of
success
but a big failure it's a tale of sexual
addiction
while in england mustafa cannot stop
sleeping with women
english women white women to be specific
he weaves short and tall stories about
his
background to seduce these women he
plays on the exotic stories the
english were craving animals wild nature
desert lush green jungles he lies to his
teeth
to sleep with those women once they find
out it's
too much for them this leads them to
depression and
suicide but the final nail in most of us
coughing is when he falls in love with
one particular woman he is obsessed
finally his obsession is rewarded
she marries him but things get more
complicated
so she refuses sex when she finally
gives in
during that sexual encounter he inserts
a knife
into her and kills her he's sentenced to
seven years in prison
after his release he returned to sudan
and marries a woman
and they have two kids and they settle
in this small village
where our narrator meets him after his
confession to our narrator he asked the
narrator to be the guardian for his wife
and kids this is a bit suspicious
but we'll find out soon after mustafa
has drowned in a flooding of the nile a
rare occurrence in this part of sudan
there is a hint that he might have taken
his own life but we can't be sure
months later mustafa's widow hosna is
forced to marry an old man raise who has
multiple wives
but she refuses to allow him to sleep
with her but
he persists the final act is that hosna
murders this old man this act of murder
is a sort of feminist revenge on the
endless suffering men
caused women in this novel an act of
defiance by hosner not to be tamed by a
man hosner had asked our narrator to
marry her
so other men won't come after her but he
had refused as it felt they might have
been construed as too opportunistic
on his part so the end the guilt and the
nightmarish events are a bit too much
for our narrator
who remains unnamed and he attempts
suicide by the end
but at the very last minute he changes
his mind and gives life
another chance however we cannot be sure
if he survives the suicide or not it
appears he does survive
because otherwise who told us this story
the major theme of this novel is
colonialism people suggest that this was
written in response to the heart of
darkness by
joseph conrad in this novel mustafa is
somehow similar to kurt not for
resources or
slavery but for sex every woman he
sleeps with
seems like a conquest for him he has a
fetish for white skin back in sudan
sleeping with a white woman symbolizes
power and prestige
it's almost unimaginable that a sudanese
or an african man can seduce a white
woman in africa but in england
once he makes that leap he cannot stop
himself anymore he lies and he invents
stories to seduce these women what is
different
is that he's exoticizing himself it
talks about animals
wilderness and denial and anything that
the english are fascinated about white
british people
love stories about other places and
mustafa plays the game by luring them to
these imaginary places
and lands the allure of the other is at
the heart of this novel
sexual conquest and military conquests
in history
are symbolized together and the issue of
black against
wyatt is played in this novel but i
think it goes a little bit deeper it's
the issue between men and women in
general the novel by highlighting the
black man seducing white women in
england in fact draws our attention
to the fact that the colonists not only
took the land and resources from african
they also picked the women in those
places but since exploiting the women of
those places appear too insignificant in
the face of political economic and
cultural devastation they caused
this novel highlights that as the most
important part of the story this novel
shows that the white men treated women
for worse than mustapha had done in
london the difference is that mustapha
had to lie and invent fiction in order
to sleep with
these women but the colonists either
made similar promises or in most
situations used force
another theme of the novel is that love
is a dangerous game at worst it leads to
murder and suicide
once mustafa became obsessed with jean
morris the woman he kills
he thinks there is no backing off she on
her part
taunts him and refuses him despite the
fact that they are married it also
alludes to other forms of love
love for one's country or religion often
lead people to kill
other people so love is not a safe thing
there is an issue with the english
education mustafa is educated by the
british
from his school in his village to cairo
and then england he has no anchor
and his mother is very hands off she
leaves him to make his own decision at a
very young age
he has nobody to guide him except the
english and the english education system
mustafa loved white women white skin
suggests this because he was educated by
the british he was brought up in a
system where being white was better he
also loved how white women smelled
he loved the way they empowered him the
way they bought into his stories and
lies
when the narrator visit most of us house
there's not a single book
in arabic all in english so which
suggests that he was completely immersed
in the english culture i don't know why
this obsession with white skin was due
to his education
but it's true that when he met this
white woman in cairo and she was so
kind and so nice to him that she made a
huge impression on him he didn't have a
father and the mother wasn't very
attentive but his obsession with women
in general cannot be due to his english
education i think there's another man in
the village rais
is as obsessed with women as mustapha
despite having no western education i
guess mustafa is different as he is an
intellectual a famous economist
but alienated from his own culture the
consequence of such alienation is
depicted in this novel but i still don't
think mustafa is a victim
i think it's both ways he is to blame
the system that he was brought tabin
also to be blamed
another symbolic thing is water the
riven oil flows north
so does mustafa hence the title season
of migration to the north mustafa
describes himself like a thirsty desert
when he refers to his sexual desire for
white women
it appears he wants to symbolize the
continent the sahara desert
as his own thirst as his own internal
desire
at the end he drowns in the flooding of
the nile now this unusual flood hadn't
happened in 30 years
so his death is a bit of an anomaly and
a mystery as well
perhaps suicide when you look at his
life from sudan to egypt to england and
back in the village
it is a drifting sort of life as if he
is not in control
just floats on a dinghy first to the
nile then the mediterranean
then the north sea and so forth and
finally in a flooding of the nile so
most of her coming from a dry desert
country
is always thirsty
season of migration to the north is told
in a very interesting way
mustafa story is told by an unnamed
narrator so we get to know a bit about
him too
at first i didn't really understand why
we have a narrator at all but later
understood that perhaps mustafa couldn't
really tell his own story
he was in a way forced to confess by the
narrator despite being a really short
novel
the middle section when the narrator
leaves the main story aside and talks
about his own journey to khartoum
and his life didn't really add much to
the novel withholding the plot
makes it a bit slow in the middle it's
like the camera cuts between mustafa's
tail
and the narrator's tail so this does
make it a bit slow i think the way
mustafa's story ends is exactly like the
blind owl by sadiq
dayat ends a man kills his wife when
they are both naked
both husbands were finally allowed to
consummate but they insert a knife
instead
it is also similar to dostoevsky's crime
and punishment because in both books the
influence of western ideas
are very present in the lives of the
characters
both and raskolnikov are the products of
western ideas
and western education system but in this
short novel
130 pages we have about seven people
dead but you don't have to be told to
land great punches it's a really
powerful novel the writing is
exquisite no surprise it is a classic of
both african
and arabic literature i really enjoyed
this novel it is as powerful as
chinua achebe's things fall apart i hope
you enjoyed this video
please let me know what you think about
this novel have you read it or if you
have any questions
please leave a comment thank you