The Christian Science Monitor An Arabian Nights in reverse, enclosing a pithy moral about international misconceptions and delusionsPowerfully and poetically written and splendidly translated by Denys Johnson-Davies.Back home, he discovers a stranger among the familiar faces of childhoodthe enigmatic Mustafa Saeed.
A Handful Of Dates By Tayeb Salih Series Of FraughtMustafa takes the young man into his confidence, telling him the story of his own years in London, of his brilliant career as an economist, and of the series of fraught and deadly relationships with European women that led to a terrible public reckoning and his return to his native land.But what is the meaning of Mustafas shocking confession Mustafa disappears without explanation, leaving the young manwhom he has asked to look after his wifein an unsettled and violent no-mans-land between Europe and Africa, tradition and innovation, holiness and defilement, and man and woman, from which no one will escape unaltered or unharmed. Season of Migration to the North is a rich and sensual work of deep honesty and incandescent lyricism. In 2001 it was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century. Maude Newton, NPR.com Season of Migration to the North is remarkably compact, really a novella rather than a novel. But woven into the brief text is a dense tracery of allusions to Arabic and European fiction, Islamic history, Shakespeare, Freud, and classical Arabic poetrya corpus that haunts all his writing. Salih, who died this past February in London, packed an entire library into this slim masterpiece. Rather, it is alive with drama and incident: crimes of passion, sadomasochism, suicide. Harpers Magazine This is the one novel that everyone insisted I took with me. Set in a Sudanese village by the Nile, it is a brilliant exploration of African encounters with the West, and the corrupting power of colonialism. The narrator is a man returned to his native village, after university in England, and he gradually unpicks the horrifying story of a newcomer he finds in his old home. This man had been a brilliant Sudanese student and had also gone to England with terrible consequences. I never got this book out to read without someone coming up to tell me how brilliant it was. Mary Beard Season of Migration to the North, by Tayeb Salih, is an eloquent and restrained portrait of one mans exile. It is a rare narrative in that it charts a life divided between England and Sudan. Without a doubt it is one of the finest Arabic novels of the 20th century, and Denys Johnson-Davies translationdoes the original justice. Hisham Matar Emerging from a constantly evolving narrative, in a trance-like telling, is the clash between an assumed worldly sophistication and enduring, dark, elemental forces. An arresting work by a major Arab novelist who mines the rich lode of African experience with the Western world. Publishers Weekly A beautifully constructed novel by an author whose reputation in Arabic is deservedly vast. London Tribune It is certainly time that Salih be better known in America.
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