Toward a New Critical Approach: Deconstructing the Structural and Narrative Discourse in Season of Migration to the North

Haithm Zinhom; Fatima Saif Aldahmani

doi:10.4312/an.58.1.75-104

Authors

Haithm Zinhom Mohamed bin Zayed University for Humanities
Fatima Saif Aldahmani Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Humanities

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/an.58.1.75-104

Keywords:

Arabic Modernism, Colonized and Colonizer, East and West, Narrative Techniques, Orient and Occident, Post-colonial discourse

Abstract

In the framework of contemporary literary theories, this paper explores Tayeb Salih’s acclaimed work, Season of Migration to the North, examining it as a postcolonial modernist novel that traverses the dynamics between the Orient and the Occident. The analysis investigates the novel to explore the conflicts between the Colonized and the Colonizer, aiming to uncover new thematic directions crucial to the relationships between Africa and Britain. The paper contends that Salih re-writes and reinterprets the history of the British Empire in Sudan by engaging with canonized western fiction, particularly Heart of Darkness, to highlight the complex intersections between East and West. As an example of post-colonial Arabic modernism, Season of Migration to the North employs a distinctive narrative approach featuring a multiplicity of voices, reflecting diverse perspectives on issues such as colonization, hegemony, hybridity, and loss of identity.

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