SEASON OF MIGRATION TO THE NORTH

Name of the book is season of migration to the north it is written by Tayeb Salih, he was born 1929 in nothern province of Sudan. He studied in England and worked for various broadcasting corperations abroad, including English broadcasting corperation as head of drama in the arabic services.He later worked as director in qatar, with Unesco in Paris. Culturally Tayeb as well as geographycally lives astride the East and West. This book talks about a certain academic called Mustafa sa’eed, who was born in Khartoum in 16 August 1898.his father was from Ababda tribe, the tribe living between Egypt and Sudan and her mother was from the Baria tribe. Mustafa Sa’eed covered his period of education in Sudan at one bound as if he were having a race with time.He was the first student from Gordon college to receive a scholarship to Cairo later to London, first Sudanese to be sent on a scholarship abroad. His Principal in Khartoum Mr Stockwell is the one who arranged his move to Cairo, there he met Mr Robinson and his wife. After excelling in his studies he went to Alexandria where he bought a ship to London by that time he was nearing twenty, studied criminal law at Oxford university. As a young man he started to have some feelings for girls like any young man his age. His first love was jean Morris from Leeds whom he met in Chelsea in a party, she was followed by Ann Hammond the daughter of an officer in royal engineers her mother from rich family in Liverpool. She was less than twenty and was studying oriental languages at Oxford. Ann Hammond committed a suicide after Mustafa left her, police found a note saying “Mr sa’eed may God damn you”. Poor ladies were deceived by sweet lies of Mustafa because he promised them that he would marry them. Others did not know his name as he was calling himself with different nicknames like Amin, Charles, Richard and Hassan. At age of twenty four he was a lecture in Economics at Oxford university, at that time he was battling courts in England for the deaths of womens he had affairs with.His lawyer Maxwell Foster Keen saved him from the gallows, Mr keen said that “Mustafa does not exist ,he is illusion,a lie and I ask you to rule tht the lie be killed”.He told them that Ann Hammond,Sheila Greenwood were girls who were seeking death by every means and that they would have committed suicide whether they had met Mustafa sa’eed or not. He also stressed that Mustafa is noble man whose mind was able to absorb ,western civilization but it broke his heart. The girls were not killed by Mustafa but by the germ of a deadly disease that assailed them a thousand years ago. During October 1922 and February 1923 Mustafa lived with five women simultaneousely, again promising what he had promised Ann and others that was marriage. After he was lucky not be sent to jail he left London for Sudan, on his arrival in sudan he went to live in the bent of Nile river. He bought himself a farm, built a house and married Mamoud’s daughter Mahjoub and they were blessed with two sons. The villagers did not know about him that much except that he was from Khartoum because he was secretive man, although he was not bragging about his academic record but passionate about farming. He had a piece of land to plough vegetables and fruits and always giving them to those in need, people liked him a lot because of that.It was a steamingly hot July night that turned things to worse, Nile river that year having experienced one of those floods that occur after many years. The land was covered with water most of the land lying between the river bank and the edge of the desert where houses stood.People were using boats to move around in that sorrowful day. Mustafa Sa’eed was a well known swimmer as he had some time in England but that day he did not survive the floods. Telephones massages were sent to the stations along Nile as far as Karma but his body was not among those washed. After a week people lost hope of finding him especially in the crocodile infested river, he was presumed dead after the search.Mustafa on his death left a wife and two sons, the writer claims that Mustafa gave him a note before he met his death that day.It was having some instructions to guide him to divide the deceased’s wealth between his children. The note states that Mr Sa’eed had left three cows,two donkeys, ten goats,five sheeps, thirty palms ,twenty acacia, sayal, house made up of five rooms and thirty seven pounds also some milliemes in cash. The old man who enjoyed high life at his prime time died living a low life in the rural village along the Nile river.The life of Mustafa was astonishing because people in the Nile did not who Mustafa was, he was a secretive man. His life of secrets and lies made him to die a terrible death and poor. To my understanding Mustafa was a womaniser and a lier of his time. People like him were not good to set example to people who lived in his time,some will know him through the writer because he had some documents of him. The documents states certain information about him that he was a accused of the deaths of women in England. As a heartless man Mustafa never apologised for his evil ways in London, he was like a predator preying for it’s prey, the number of women he slept with was embarassing. The writer have lot of respect for Musatafa even though he had done terrible mistakes. May be is the fact that he was an academic, nobody knows. His life did not have a direction at all,Mutafa Sa’eed deserved a nice burial had they discovered his body. One can’t deny but accept that Mustafa was a well educated person of his time ,having acquired his qualifications in criminal law and economics. The fact that Mustafa was not found is sad because people who were close to him wanted to give him the last honour, it remained question to many of them of where Mustafa has gone. They claimed that he is dead but no one was sure of that because a man like him one can’t know what he was up to,but had they found his body I am quite sure they were going to give him a proper funeral like any old man. The writer can boast about the fact that he lived in the days of Mustafa an academic and a farmer, because he got opportunity to gather some facts to write about that man.Some will remember the good things he did as farmer along the Nile river,he was a kind of philantropist. Others will say God punished him dearly for his evil ways for causing deaths in London especially Londoners were he had spent most of his time studying and working before he left for Sudan. But as human being no one can judge him except to give their comments of concern, only God will judge him for his ways while he was still in this planet. Wherever he is his soul may rest in peace. Comment This book is worth reading, interesting and giving a guidence to men who use their success to achieve things which won’t contribute any good to their lives.