Season of Migration to the North Chapters Summary & Analysis

CHAPTER 1 SUMMARY
The narrator begins his story with his return to his home, a “small village at the bend of the Nile” (3) after
seven years studying in Europe. He had “longed” for his fellow villagers, but upon arriving, he feels a strange
sense of separation that does not clear until the next morning. Just as he begins to feel rooted in his new
reality, he recalls that a man he had never met was present at his arrival. He learns from his father that the
man is Mustafa Sa’eed, a foreigner who has married Mahmoud’s daughter Hosna. Unsettled, he continues to
search for a sense of stability and goes to his grandfather, who is able to give him more information about the
man. He learns Mustafa is from Khartoum and well respected within the village.

The narrator’s next two months send him into frequent contact with the stranger: First, Mustafa visits him at
home, laughing when he learns the narrator completed his thesis on an English poet and thus earning the
narrator’s ire. The narrator dines at Mustafa’s home and notes his intelligence at a meeting of the Agricultural
Project Committee. He remains suspicious of the man but is utterly stunned when he encounters him at a bar.
There, their mutual friend Mahjoub pressures Mustafa to drink, and once very drunk, he begins to recite
poetry in English. The narrator is terrified, suddenly feeling that his world is surreal and illusory. He
confronts Mustafa in the fields the next day, but the man claims he was merely speaking gibberish. The next
evening, Mustafa goes to the narrator’s house and promises to tell his tale so that the narrator’s mind does not
run away from him. He presents a birth certificate and two passports: One is British.
CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY

The second chapter, narrated by Mustafa, appears entirely between quotations marks. He reveals that he was
born in Khartoum and grew up fatherless. He was distant from his mother and decided to go to school on his
own. There, he discovered he had a sharp mind: He learned to write in two weeks, and from there, his brain
“continued […] biting and crushing like the teeth of a plough” (21). After three years, he continued schooling
in Cairo. He never saw his mother again but felt little remorse at the time. In Cairo, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson
cared him for. He felt little affection for them, observing, that his sole tool was “that sharp knife inside [his]
skull” (24), and that he had no feeling in his heart. He states that at 15, the mysterious call towards England
led him “to the world of Jean Morris” (24).

From here on, his story is heavy with foreshadowing: He repeatedly tells the narrator that his meeting with
Jean was fated, stating that everything in his life led him to killing the woman who was for three years his
object of desire, later his wife, and finally his victim. After arriving in London, he had begun to seduce
women, turning his bedroom into an elaborately staged “operating theatre” (27) decorated with African
artifacts. As a renowned economist and university professor, he had a prestigious position—he calculatedly
used this as well as stereotypes of Africa and the jungle to present himself as “a symbol rather than reality”
(37), a caricature of the Other. Ann Hammond was a young student with a penchant for “the South”; Sheila
Greenwood was a waitress; and Isabella Seymour was a married woman: All fell for him, and then committed
suicide. After Mustafa killed Jean Morris, the women’s deaths were used against him at her murder trial. This
chapter does not contain his account of Jean’s murder but does narrate his seduction of Isabella Seymour at
length. As she fell in love with him, a “weak voice from the depths of [his] consciousness” (37) urged him to
stop his seduction, but he did not.
CHAPTERS 1-2 ANALYSIS

The first two chapters introduce two voices, that of the narrator and that of Mustafa Sa’eed. We learn that the
men have much in common: Both were viewed as the smartest boys in their villages; both pursued higher
education, living and travelling in Europe; and both now live in the same small village at the bend of the Nile.
However, they have returned under different circumstances, and these chapters suggest that their different
paths will form the crux of the narrative. After meeting, both these characters must reevaluate the ways in
which their two worlds—African and European—come into contact and conflict.

When the narrator returns to his Wad Hamid, he hopes that he will find a sense of purpose and belonging.
Upon arriving, he feels that a part of himself that had been “frozen” (3) in Europe begins to melt. However,
this experience is also accompanied by ambivalence. As he wanders about the village, he searches for familiar
sights and sounds that will make him feel fully connected to the world around him. He has some success, but
Mustafa Sa’eed presence is from the outset a source of bother and concern. Even before he learns that
Mustafa is a fellow migrant, the mere presence of a stranger—a man he does not know, and who does not
know him—makes his world feel less real. Therefore, when Mustafa begins to recite poetry in English, his
world is upended. He says that he is as shocked by this sight as he would have been by an “afreet” (14), or
demon. His two worlds collide unexpectedly in this moment.

As we encounter Mustafa’s voice in the second chapter, we learn that he is a murderer, although these pages
do not reveal the details of how he came to kill his wife Jean Morris. Although his path parallels the
narrator’s in some ways—he receives a doctorate and is admired for his mind—it differs in others. In
particular, whereas the narrator longs to return home, Mustafa is content to live in London, trafficking in
African stereotypes to seduce women. His background is not a source of nostalgia and contentment, but a tool
for manipulating others to his will. To his lawyers and the European audience, his case represents the
collision of two cultures and two worlds. It is a test case for Europe’s “civilizing mission” (78), and its
outcome will seemingly reveal whether Europeans and Africans can ever live together harmoniously. Mustafa
serves seven years and then returns to Sudan, telling no one his tale.

English poetry takes on a special significance in these pages: Mustafa tells the narrator that it has no use and
no place in Sudan. However, he himself begins reciting it when drunk. With his inhibitions lowered, he outs
himself as a poetry enthusiast. The collision of worlds strikes fear into the narrator’s heart. Mustafa decides to
tell his story because he is afraid that the narrator, as a poet, might let his imagination run away from him.

CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY

The narrator fast-forwards ahead several years, to Mustafa Sa’eed’s death. He relays that he received news of
the event while in Khartoum: Mustafa had disappeared on a night after the Nile’s flooding, presumably due to
drowning or suicide. He thinks back to his response to Mustafa’s tale. After hearing it, he wandered the
village at night, wondering if he could have fallen to the same fate. He concludes that he was different then
Mustafa—he lived in England “neither loving nor hating” (41) the English.

However, living in Khartoum and working with the Department of Education two years after Mustafa’s death,
he finds himself repeatedly confronting Mustafa. Mustafa has named the narrator guardian of his two sons.
Moreover, he meets men who knew Mustafa, all of whom are ignorant of his fate. In one conversation, he
meets a young Sudanese man as well as an Englishmen working with the Ministry of Finance, and together,
they discuss Mustafa and the legacy of colonialism. The young man states that Mustafa helped the English
plot their affairs in the Sudan, while the Englishmen shares that he was “not a reliable economist” (48) since
his work did not rely on statistics. The narrator shares the details of Mustafa’s death, but his statement is
treated as a flight-of-fancy rather than a statement of fact. But he finds himself sympathizing with Mustafa:
“[W]hat use are statistics?” (50). They do not make sense of the legacy that colonialism has left in Africa.
CHAPTER 4 SUMMARY
The narrator relays that, in the years after Mustafa’s death, he returns to his village for two months a year to
check on Mustafa’s sons. Now married, his wife and child accompany him. He shares Mustafa’s letter in full,
and the man’s voice thus appears in the narrative once again. In it, Mustafa urges the narrator to tell his sons
the truth about him, and to shield them from wanderlust. The existence of this letter—Mustafa’s clear sense
that his end was coming—is what suggests to the narrator that the man either planned suicide or got from
nature what he wanted. In the village, he thinks again of Mustafa’s fate, and the mere seven years he spent in
prison for murder. He tries to make his mind off the man, however, concentrating on the bend at the Nile,
where “fresh breeze […] comes from the direction of the river like a half-truth amidst a world filled with lies”
(58).
CHAPTERS 3-4 ANALYSIS

Chapters 3 and 4 jump ahead several years from the events of Chapters 1 and 2. While the first two chapters
dramatically contrast two voices—that of the narrator and that of Mustafa Sa’eed—in these, we see the
lasting effects of Mustafa’s story on the narrator. Two years after his death, Mustafa has become both a
symbol, as well as a ghost who constantly reemerges in the narrator’s life. Here, we see the narrator’s reaction
to Mustafa’s strange tale of seduction, the embrace of colonial stereotypes, and murder. Although he is at first
shocked, after Mustafa’s death, he seems to feel a sense of superiority and disdain.

Years later, the narrator has risen to a prominent position in the Sudanese government, and when he hears
stories of Mustafa’s fabled intelligence and influence, he is annoyed. It seems that this is in part because of a
sense of competitiveness with the dead man—he resents that Mustafa is still imagined to be so brilliant and
successful when, in fact, his fate was so pitiable. However, he does not and perhaps cannot share the truth
with others when the subject arises. This may be in part because he is guardian of his sons and does not wish
to spread new that could bring them harm. However, the narrator also tells us that when the subject arises, he
does not see the sense in arguing. In this, the narrator has followed Mustafa: He returns to his home country
not to debate the effects of colonialism on the dead and living, but to live out his days as peaceably as
possible.

However, it is implied that Mustafa’s continuing presence, and especially his entreaty to care for his two
sons, keeps the narrator from experiencing true peace. When he returns to the village, he is able to find the
sense of rootedness, purpose, and truth he craves once again. However, now the Nile seems to whisper only a
“half-truth” (138) rather than the whole truth. We can deduce that the narrator’s view of the world has been
permanently shaped by the story of a brilliant Sudanese man’s gradual descent into depravity, then obscurity,
then death.

CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY

The narrator visits his grandfather’s house and walks in on a conversation between his grandfather and his old
friends Bint Majzoub, Wad Rayyes, and Bakri. A ribald conversation full of laughter and teasing ensues.
Wad Rayyes, a man famed for his many wives and his high sexual appetite, tells the story of making love to a
slave girl, thus leading his father to marry him off to his first wife. Bint Majzoub, an elderly widow, teases
him—and is teased in return for her eight husbands and equally high appetite for sex. The two discuss
whether they will ever wed again, and Bakri asks Wad Rayyes, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for having a
wedding every year?” (65). Wad Rayyes becomes angry, but then praises the pleasures of fornication,
especially uncircumcised Western women. He asks the narrator about his experience with Western women.
When the narrator reveals he has none, Wad Rayyes condemns the men of a younger generation for being
“one-woman men” (67), opposed to polygamy.
The group briefly debates the merits of female circumcision, but the conversation quickly turns back to their
respective sexual conquests and experiences. After laughing uproariously, each of them asks for God’s
forgiveness. As everyone departs, Wad Rayyes invites the narrator to lunch. The narrator’s grandfather then
reveals that Wad Rayyes hopes to ask the narrator for permission to marry Mustafa Sa’eed’s widow. Picturing
Hosna underneath Wad Rayyes, the narrator is enraged.
CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY

The following afternoon, the narrator visits Hosna to inform her of Wad Rayyes’s intentions. Their
conversation begins awkwardly. As evening falls, he asks her if she loved her husband, realizing just as the
words leave his mouth that “the darkness and perfume [are] all but causing [him] to lose control” (75). Hosna
does not directly answer but tells the narrator that her husband was a generous man. She also reveals that he
had the feeling he was hiding something because he spoke “gibberish” in his sleep—“words like Jeena Jeeny”
(77). She also knew that he was anticipating his own death: He arranged his affairs a week in advance. She
begins to cry. As the narrator contemplates what to do, Mustafa’s voice comes back to him, and he quotes an
as-yet-unincluded segment of man’s confession for several paragraphs. We learn that Mustafa narrated his
experience in the courtroom. As a jury of British citizens decided his fate, he had a feeling of superior: He felt
himself to be “a colonizer […] the intruder whose fate must be decided” (79). Thinking over the dead man’s
words, the narrator tells Hosna she must not cling to the past—that she may decide to accept a suitor some
day. She tells him that she will never again marry, adding of Wad Rayyes, “‘If they force me to marry him,
I’ll him and kill myself’” (80).

The next morning, Wad Rayyes visits the narrator and is enraged to hear Hosna’s response. The man insists
that he will marry her whether or not she is willing. He also accuses the narrator of interfering, stating that
there is something between them. The narrator exits the room and visits his friend Mahjoub. Mahjoub
reminds the narrator that there is nothing Hosna can do if her father and brother agree to the marriage. He
speculates that Wad Rayyes is obsesses with Hosna because she has an air of superiority and culture after her
marriage to Mustafa. Eventually, as they discuss the woman and her sons, Mahjoub proposes that the narrator
marry her and take her as his second wife. The narrator briefly thinks back to her perfume, and his feeling in
the darkness—but laughs it off. However, he leaves his friend knowing that he is in love with Hosna.
CHAPTERS 5-6 ANALYSIS

After exploring the effect of Mustafa’s confession on his life in Khartoum as the [Minister of Education] in
the previous two chapters, the narrator focuses on Mustafa’s enduring legacy in the village in Chapters 5 and
6. As guardian of the man’s two sons, the narrator is irrevocably tied to him in the minds of his countrymen.
When Wad Rayyes develops the desire to marry Hosna, this forces the narrator to again confront his
connection to Mustafa.

In Chapter 5, we see a different side of the narrator’s Sudanese village. In previous chapters, Mustafa’s
London is a debauched world, full of seduction, sex, and exploitation. When the narrator enters his
grandfather’s residence and finds Wad Rayyes, Bint Majzoub, and Bakri discussing their sexual histories, we
learn more about how sex and seduction work in this village. Wad Rayyes’s first anecdote about sleeping
with a slavery girl seems to narrate a rape, and his later stories show that, as a polygamous Muslim, he
marries any woman he hopes to sleep with, divorcing her as soon as he loses interest in her. He looks down
on men who only take one wife, or who never remarry after one wife’s death. While his account paints a
portrait of a chauvinistic society, Bint Majzoub’s ribald tales suggest that women, too, enjoy this sexual
culture—even if they are circumcised.

Although westerners frequently think of Muslim nations as sexually repressed and conservative, these
characters’ view the narrator’s monogamy stems from prudish, Western beliefs. When he becomes enraged at
the idea of Hosna marrying Wad Rayyes, he must consider at Mahjoub’s urging whether his beliefs truly have
a place in his village. Although he quickly realizes that he is in love with Hosna, and although he could marry
her and spare her from a forced union, he finds himself unable to.

As he wrestles with this collision of European and African beliefs and values, the narrator once again thinks
of Mustafa Sa’eed, including parts of his confession that were not excerpted in Chapter 2. In them, Mustafa
reveals that he ultimately felt superior at his trial. He felt that the violence he exacted was merely a result of
the “disease” of colonization, something that he had contracted and then inevitably spread. As the narrator
grapples with his feelings for Hosna, he must consider what kinds of violence he is willing to enact, and to
observe. Furthermore, he must continue to confront the reality that he has in a sense been “infected” not just
by colonialism, but by Mustafa’s dark tale.
CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY

The narrator stays in the village during Hosna’s son’s circumcision ceremony. He thinks of marrying her and
drinks too much. With Mahjoub, he goes to Mustafa’s house to finally use his key and look at Mustafa’s
private room. He tells Mahjoub that “Mustafa Sa’eed was a lie,” and his friend responds that Mustafa was “in
fact the Prophet El-Kidr” (89). They both wake up at home, unsure of what happened. The narrator leaves,
journeying through the desert to Khartoum with thoughts of Hosna, his uncle’s black donkey, and the
coercive effects of heat. He wonders if any men are as they appear to be, and laments the sun: “Where, O
God, is the shade?” (90). On his journey, he encounters a broken-down government car and hears the story of
a woman who has killed her husband. He realizes straightaway that they refer to Hosna. Thinking of Mustafa,
who was described by the judge at his own trial as in “intelligent fool” (92), he decides to write to Mrs.
Robinson.

As the sun sets in the desert, the narrator’s driver begins to sing. Other passing vehicles join in until they form
“a huge caravanserai of more than a hundred men” (94) eating and drinking. They begin to sing and dance
together, and eventually, women join in. The resulting event is “a feast without meaning, a mere desperate
act” (95). They part in the morning.

CHAPTER 8 SUMMARY

After hearing of Hosna’s death, the narrator returns immediately to his village. He has been gone for only 32
days and must leave a conference about organizational educational methods across the African continent.
Mahjoub greets him riding the narrator’s uncle’s black donkey. The digs for information about what has
happened. On the ride back from the port, he thinks about the conference, at which African leaders espoused
the need to “tear out [the] disease” of capitalism by its roots while wearing expensive suits, furs, and jewelry
(99). These ministers reminded the narrator of Mustafa Sa’eed, and he, in fact, discovered that one has been
the man’s student. Back at home, the narrator’s mother reveals that Hosna had shown up and asked his father
to persuade the narrator to marry her. Still, she won’t give him any more details about Hosna’s death, and
neither will his grandfather.

After three days, the narrator goes to see Bint Majzoub. She tells him the story: after evening prayer, she
heard screaming that made her think Wad Rayyes had finally been able to seduce Hosna. However, soon, she
heard her friend calling for help. She ran into the house and found Hosna with a knife plunged through her
heart, covered in bites and scratches. She had stabbed Wad Rayyes “more than ten times” (105). Upon finding
out, Wad Rayyes’s eldest wife stated that her husband had brought his own death upon him. At the end of the
tale, the narrator feels that he has no place in the village: “[N]othing astonishes these people” (107). He
speaks to Mahjoub again, who reveals that he knew Hosna wanted to marry the narrator. Mahjoub tells the
narrator that he cannot blame himself: Hosna was merely mad. The narrator protests that she was “the sanest
woman in the village” (109) and strangles his friend. Before he can kill Mahjoub, someone strikes him in the
head, causing him to pass out.

CHAPTERS 7-8 ANALYSIS

These chapters show Hosna as well as the narrator duplicating Mustafa Sa’eed’s path. The parallel between
Hosna’s actions and her husband’s is clear: Mustafa killed his first wife Jean Morris, and Hosna kills her
second husband Wad Rayyes. Mustafa’s trial was seen as a result of the collision between African and
European values and lives, and he was given only seven years for murder. Hosna’s murder-suicide would
seem to be a result of a similar collision. After years married to Mustafa, she is seen by other villagers as
“worldly,” and she seems to have adopted a very Western belief in women’s autonomy. She is unwilling to go
along with the wishes of her father and brother, and she boldly states that she will kill the man who tries to
defy her will. It turns out that this is not an idle threat. Although she never knew her late husband’s secret, she
thus seems “infected” with both his ideas and his violence.

The narrator, however, also finds himself following Mustafa’s path. Although the narrator tried to put
Mustafa out of his mind for several years, he finds himself increasingly embroiled in the man’s affairs. After
becoming guardian to Mustafa’s children and falling in love with his wife, he finally finds himself wandering
the desert confusedly, contemplating man’s place on earth, the insufferable heat, and the legacy of
colonialism. The narrator first felt a sense of belonging and rootedness on his return to the Sudan; now, he
feels purposeless and confused.

Upon returning to the village after Hosna’s death, the narrator in fact no longer feels he belongs in his village.
Although it was “his” village rather than Mustafa Sa’eed’s, he no longer understands the ways of his people.
That his friends and family would let Wad Rayyes marry Hosna against her will violates his sense of right
and wrong. Mustafa’s sense of separation and isolation eventually led to his murdering Jean Morris. Now, the
narrator’s isolation from his community leads him to strangle his good friend Mahjoub.
CHAPTER 9 SUMMARY

The narrator wrestles with his feelings, noting that he has begun “from where Mustafa Sa’eed had left off”
(111). He felts untethered to his village and confused by his own violent actions. He realizes that while
Mustafa at least made a choice to act violently, he himself failed to act and save Hosna, thus leading him into
his situation almost against his will. As he contemplates this, he finally goes to look in Mustafa’s locked
room. He finds a room covered floor-to-ceiling with book, none in Arabic. The narrator is disgusted with this
discovery. He considers Mustafa “a fool” (112) for failing to hide or let go of his past. He also finds pictures
of Mustafa’s mistresses and wife. As he looks at these pictures and paintings, he remembers Mustafa’s
confession, quoting parts that have not yet appeared in the book. First included is the information that Isabelle
Seymour’s husband testified on Mustafa’s behalf, arguing that she killed herself because of her terminal
cancer rather than because of her lover. Next, the narrator remembers Mustafa’s description of Ann
Hammond: She came up to him at one of his lectures and immediately began to cast herself in the role of his
“Sausan,” his slave. Although they were both lying and playing a role, their connection felt real.

Next, the narrator quotes Mrs. Robinson’s reply to his letter. She called Mustafa, or “Moozie,” “unstable” and
“incapable of either accepting or giving happiness” (123). She reveals that she is writing a book about him.
As he considers her words, he finds scraps of paper, including Mustafa’s attempts at beginning his
autobiography, as well as poetry that he considers very poor. He suddenly realizes that Mustafa left these
scraps on purpose: The man “wants to be discovered” (127), and, in fact, appointed the narrator as his sons’
guardian so that he would discover this room.

The narrator jumps to his feet and finds a painting of Jean Morris. Finally, he quotes the end of Mustafa’s
confession. He pursued Jean Morris for three years, convinced that she liked him despite her rejections and
rebuffs. The first time she came to his home, she tore up several of his prized possessions before kneeing him
in the testicles. When they wed, it became a battle of the wills. In their explosive fights, he often told her that
he hated her and that he would kill her. She replied, “‘I too, my sweet, hate you. I shall hate you until death’”
(132). At other times, she laughed at his threats. Finally, one night, he stabbed her through the chest during
love making, and she implored him to kill himself too. Of course, he did not.

CHAPTER 10 SUMMARY

The narrator leaves Mustafa Sa’eed’s without lighting a fire. He takes a swim in the Nile, planning to make
his way to the Northern shore. As he swims, he becomes unsure whether he is conscious or unconscious—
until he feels a strong undertow from the current. He finds he is “unable to continue, unable to return” (138).
He almost “submits” to the river, but when he feels a “violent desire for a cigarette” (119), he snaps out of his
stupor and makes a choice: to cry out for help and continue to live.

CHAPTERS 9-10 ANALYSIS

The final chapters of the book find the narrator continuing to follow in Mustafa Sa’eed path. He was flung
into the possession of the man’s confessor over two years before, but only now does he open the locked door
to his office. In it, he finds that while Mustafa chose to live in a Sudanese village without speaking English,
pursuing ambition, or revealing his true background, he could not stop surrounding himself with the artifacts
of colonialism and images of the women he “conquered.” The narrator is disgusted with this—not in the least
because he feels that it was left for him to find and make sense of. Although the narrator is a scholar of
poetry, he feels only contempt for the fragments of poetry and memoir that Mustafa has left behind.

These pages show that Mustafa was not the only one writing down his life story: Mrs. Robinson is planning
on writing a book about him. Mustafa’s legacy as a genius, as well as a failure, seems destined to live on. The
narrator protests that he will not be the one to write it down; however, in the final pages of Chapter 9, he
finally includes the rest of Mustafa’s confession, thus preserving the man’s story in full in his own account.
We finally learn that Mustafa’s murder was an act of both hatred and love in an ambivalent, violent marriage
that neither party knew how to escape.

When the narrator leaves Mustafa’s house, he sets out to carve his own path and clear his mind. However, he
once again finds himself following his adversary’s footsteps: Mustafa is thought to have drowned in the river,
and suddenly, the narrator finds himself close to drowning. It is in this moment that he realizes his own
indecision and purposelessness and decides to choose life where Mustafa chose death.