"Season of Migration to the North" by Tayeb Salih (New York Review Books Classics)

lilg88: My daughter said it was good.

United States on Apr 29, 2023

fouad homed: Is right order

United States on Mar 24, 2023

Jonathan Talbot: At the heart of this book is something mysterious. I finished it and wondered quite what l had read. It is both disciplined and yet elusive, poetic and prosaic. Utterly compelling from the beginning, a truly great novel. In many ways a simple story yet it has so much to say. Get it!!

United Kingdom on Jan 18, 2023

Rosemond: Needed this book for my Africana class

United States on Nov 06, 2022

sameer: By capturing the relationship between East and West, masterfully in such a short novel is nothing short of an achievement.

Canada on Apr 21, 2022

Tishtosh18: Unexpected story content. I knew writer was banned in certain Arabic states But this was a eye opener especially as partner is from Khartoum.

United Kingdom on Oct 28, 2020

Deborah W. Seigman: As a scholar on an NEH Institute on the topic "Arabic Literature in Translation" I studied this book and subsequently taught it in a high school humanities classroom. As the senior classes in TAG AP literature approached graduation, one student asked for my desk copy as a souvenir, and I gladly gave it to him before I also "graduated" to retirement. Now, over a decade later, I was searching for another copy and was elated to be able to buy a paperback copy at such a reasonable price. At this time of relative ignorance of the history of many parts of the Middle East and its myriad histories and populations, I am still impressed by the metafictional insights and perspectives that such a small book can give the reader. In addition, the language of the translation is amazingly lovely and poetic, yet clear and meaningful. Despite its compact size, it calls for multiple readings: once for the breathtaking personal stories and scenic descriptions, and at least two more to annotate the contrasting historically political perceptions of human beings who lived the times.

United States on Aug 17, 2014

Amazon Customer: Don't buy this book expecting an orientalist depiction of the Arab world, such that you would by it come to understand something which was previously mysterious. Instead, read this book for the trauma and chaos that lurks inside of it. For a sense of how the colonized is effected by the colonizer not just in the theft of territory, but in the dislocation of the soul. The impossibility of return, of making whole again, these are the themes of this book. Like Camus' "L'etranger" but from the perspective of the colonized, Tayeb's words spin a line not from start to end, but from end to ending, from a rift in time to an end of time. You can't go home, not only because it isn't there anymore, but more profoundly because you are no longer connected to it.

Canada on Nov 27, 2012

K. Fearon: 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 crime as a result. We find out what this is early on in the book, so you read it knowing what will happen later on. But it's also about the terrible things that can happen to women when they give up control of their lives, or don't have it in the first place - when men act, or fail to act.

It is beautifully written and the plot is multi-layered and complex. You can read it in an afternoon, but it deserves more time and attention than that.

United Kingdom on Oct 21, 2010

Lisa Shea: It's interesting to read reviews of this short novel. Half of the readers see it as a satirical version of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". The other half - who perhaps have never read Conrad - think it's a vain, silly (although lyrically written) tale of a sex-maniac guy who likes to seduce and abandon women. This is one of the inherent problems in a novel which is meant to reference another work. If you were to read "Bored of the Rings" (an awesome parody of Lord of the Rings) without ever reading Lord of the Rings you might think it silly. Read them side by side and you realize the brilliance at work. Not only is that true here as well, but I also do think that Season of Migration to the North stands alone as a work in its own right.

First, if you've never read "Heart of Darkness", look it up on the web and read it. It's online in its full text (it is out of copyright now) and you can read it for free. It's a short novel, just like Season, and should only take you an hour or two. It is a brilliant work, well deserving of its high acclaim. Go on, we'll wait for you to come back.

Now, having read Heart, you can see the many similarities with Season. Both tell of...

United States on Oct 20, 2008