Two weeks ago, the Arabic literary scene lost one of its great authors, Sudanese writer al-Tayeb Mohamed Salih. Salih was born in 1929 in the northern Sudanese town of Marawi to a poor family. He was educated in an Islamic school then studied science at the University of Khartoum before leaving in 1952 for the University of London. He lived in several European and Arab countries. Coming from a background of small farmers and religious teachers, his original intention was to work in agriculture. Except, for a brief spell as a schoolmaster before coming to England, his working life was in broadcasting.
For more than ten years Salih wrote a weekly column for the London-based Arabic language newspaper, al-Majalla in which he explored various literary themes. He worked for the BBC Arabic Service, and later became director general of the Ministry of Information in Doha, Qatar. He spent the last 10 years of his working career with UNESCO in Paris, where he held various posts and was finally UNESCO’s representative in the Gulf States.
East and West
Salih’s works were generally political, dealing with themes such as colonisation and gender. He was one of the best contemporary short story writers in the Arab World, and one of its top novelists who excelled at portraying characters torn between East and West, reflecting the modern Arab and African quest for identity. “I have redefined the so-called East-West relationship as essentially one of conflict, while it had previously been treated in romantic terms,” he once said.
His 1966 masterpiece, Season of Migration to the North was declared “the most important Arabic novel of the 20th century” in 2001 by the Syrian-based Arab Literary Academy in Damascus. Salih’s works have been translated from Arabic into more than 20 languages.
One of the main characters describes his time in the West, where he seduces and then dumps a succession of English women before finally marrying one in a stormy love-hate pairing that ultimately results in her murder at his hands.
Though not officially banned, the Sudanese government in late 1990s attacked the novel as pornographic and said it violated Islamic teachings. But most believe the government’s displeasure with the book stemmed from its harsh description of the political and cultural conditions in Sudan.
The novel portrays how the western world regards the east as a romantic, mysterious world. Anwar Hamed, an Egyptian literary critic, says that the novel depicts two levels of consciousness; the physical migration and the static attitude regarding the other. The Sudanese protagonist Mustafa Said attempts to discover the western world but remains imprisoned in the regular archetype of the intellectual Arab. What is peculiar about the novel is that all the characters speak fluently and their voices are clearly heard. The Sudanese features are depicted saliently. Hamed believes that the protagonist did not change his prior notions about the west even after living there.
The other—the west—is depicted in the female figures who, curious about his mysterious world, try to seduce that dark man coming from the heart of Africa. The other is different in colour and person. It is the white, the proud and the invader but the east, exemplified in the main character, becomes the source of love, attraction and charm and finally the dominant partner in sexual relationships.
Hamed believes the novel reflects the eastern ideology frequently governed by the sexual perspective.
Irreplaceable
Salih also wrote The Cypriot Man and the The Wedding of Zein which was turned into a film that won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1976.
Gamal al-Ghitani, editor in chief of the Cairo-based literary weekly Akhbar al-Adab, described Salih as “irreplaceable”.
“Salih is one of world’s top novelists,” Ghitani said. “On the personal level, he was a modest, wise and brave man who carried the essence of Sudan’s culture outside its borders.”
Salih died at the age of 80 suffering from kidney failure. He is survived by his Scottish wife and three daughters.