Here’s a book rec for you today, along with a look at Sudanese fashion, from historical to contemporary styles.
NYRB edition
Season of Migration to the North is memorable for two things: 1. its controversial theme blending sadism and victimhood and 2. its many lines of beautiful prose.
Essentially, I think the young narrator in Season can be likened to Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby in that he’s not only telling his own story but the story of a central character. Like Nick Carraway, the narrator of Season, upon graduating from university, meets a mysterious, Jay Gatsby-ish figure in the form of Mustafa Sa’eed. However, in Season, no one’s a fixture of the glitzy 1920s New York scene. Season is set in the 1960s, in post-colonial Sudan, in a village along the fertile Nile.
Season’s narrator and his friend Mustafa share similar educational backgrounds, both having “migrated” to the North to study in England before returning to Sudan to navigate an old and new world, one of tradition and one of burgeoning modernity shaped by past British rule. When Mustafa finally opens up about his time in England, our young narrator becomes privy to the dark side of this seemingly charming and self-restrained man.
A Fashionable Intermission:
Sudan is home to almost six hundred ethnic groups, however the foremost national garb is the jalabiya (for men)
In Sudan, a jalabiya is typically white whereas in Egypt, its place of origin, the garment’s often color varies.
and the toub or tobe (for women).
Photo Source: Women’s Literacy Sudan
Historical postcard.
Actress Michaela Coel in traditional Sudanese toub.
A toub is a long, rectangular cloth usually draped around the body and it can be worn long or short. It serves as a marker of social status; used as a piece of artistic expression and national pride; and, even in the recent past, it has been a symbol of political resistance.
During the 1950s, in preparation for independence from British rule, tobes were named Freedom, The Republic, The Diplomatic Corps, The Russian Satellite…”
In the 60s and 70s, Sudanese women often mixed Western and more traditional clothes. | Photo Source: Abbas Habibala Abdulatif
Modernity and tradition. | Photo Source: Abbas Habibala Abdulatif
Photo Source: The Darfur Sartorialist
Sudanese woman wearing traditional and contemporary clothes, and Sudanese man wearing a jalabiya.
Women wearing toubs. | Photo Source: Abbas Habibala Abdulatif
Photo Source: The Darfur Sartorialist
Photo Source: The Darfur Sartorialist
Interestingly, upon its release, The Great Gatsby wasn’t the popular classic we all think of it as today. It sold quite poorly and received mixed reviews, the more negative of them dismissing the book as sensational fluff. Perhaps they thought, Jay Gatsby?—Lying, cheating phony equals tragic antihero in the end?!
Readers of Season may come away with a similar conclusion, and maybe one that’s even stronger than the indictment of Jay Gatsby.
Mustafa Sa’eed is a Sudanese man, one of the many victims of the very recent and very violent colonial rule, which has deeply affected tribal relations and the very psyche of the people.
But what does it mean to be a victim when one exacts revenge on the “enemy” with astounding cruelty and betrayal…and in the most intimate of ways?
I’d recommend Season of Migration to the North to anyone interested in colonial history, poetic literary fiction, and stories that grapple with morally complex themes.