Season of Migration to the North

The narrator and Mustafa Sa’eed both pursue higher education, but it does not necessarily equip them to live happy lives. The narrator describes his friend Mahjoub as more intelligent than himself, and he stops school once he has learned to read and write, convinced that this is adequate knowledge for a farmer. Despite the narrator’s higher level of education, he feels that his friend has a role of more importance in Wad Hamid and in their nation, as he is involved in affairs that directly affect people. Although the narrator works for the Ministry of Education, he seems to find his work somewhat meaningless and futile.

Similarly, Mustafa Sa’eed is described by the judge at his own trial as stupid despite all his learning. Later, he tells the narrator that Western schools were developed to “teach us how to say Yes in their language” (79). He argues that Western education only exists to further exploit colonized people. Although he rises to prominence as a British economist, he dies in obscurity in the Sudan. Nonetheless, his library suggests that he continues to find some value in education, even if it is not worldly success.

In this novel, the value of education is thus tested and interrogated. Once they have received an education, both the narrator and Mustafa struggle to find a place in the world, as they can tolerate neither a traditional way or life nor life in the West.

This novel pivots around both Mustafa Sa’eed’s murder of his wife Jean Morris, and the men of Wad Hamid’s exploitation of other women, including Hosna. Mustafa Sa’eed describes his violence as a result of colonialism: He states that Europeans brought the “germ” (79) of violence to Africa. Now, in Europe, he has simply been infected with its sickness. 

However, violence against women is also indigenous to the Sudan. In the debate between Bakri, Bint Majzoub, and Wad Rayyes, Bakri calls female circumcision “one of the conditions of Islam” (68). His friends disagree with him, but it is clear that this practice—considered genital mutilation is most of the world—is standard in their village, as is the forcible marriage (and consequent rape) of women. 

Although the value of Western ideas is unclear in this novel, it does suggest that women’s rights must be promoted and embraced to end cycles of violence. While Mahjoub calls Hosna “crazy” for killing Wad Rayyes, the narrator, as well as Wad Rayyes’s other wives, know that the act makes perfect sense in a culture that denies women freedom.

This novel contains two main narrative voices, that of the narrator, and that of Mustafa Sa’eed. At times, other characters’ voices are included via dialogue or letters. Although the reader primarily relies on the narrator’s account of events, his inclusion of these other voices suggests that storytelling is of great importance in the novel.

Mustafa Sa’eed’s lengthy confession, spread out across the narrative and incomplete until Chapter 9, is of particular interest. The story has a significant impact on the narrator: Although he initially denies that it had any importance in his life, he gradually finds himself following Mustafa’s path. This suggests that the stories we hear shape our decisions and actions. 

The fact that the narrator does not reveal the full confession until the end of the novel also suggests that he is actively obscuring some of his motivations and actions from the reader in the re-telling of his own story. This raises the question of whether one should ever fully trust someone else’s story, knowing the impact it may have if they do.