Tayeb Salih

Tayeb Salih (Arabic: ? ?) (12 July 1929 – 18 February 2009) was a Sudanese writer. Early life Born in Karmakol, near the village of Al Dabbah in the Northern Province of Sudan,[1] he studied at the University of Khartoum before leaving for the University of London in England. Coming from a background of small farmers and religious teachers, his original intention was to work in agriculture. However, excluding 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's 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 UNESCO's representative in the Gulf States.[2] [edit]Literary career Tayeb Saleh's writing is drawn from his experience of communal village life that is centered on people and their complex relationships. "At various levels and with varying degrees of psychoanalytic emphasis, he deals with themes of reality and illusion, the cultural dissonance between the West and the exotic orient, the harmony and conflict of brotherhood, and the individual's responsibility to find a fusion between his or her contradictions" [3] (Tayeb Salih (n.d)). It can be said that the motifs of his books are derived from his Islamic background and his experience of modern Africa, both pre- and post-colonial[3] (Tayeb Salih (n.d)). [edit]Famous publication Mawsim al-Hijra ila al-Shamal, 1966 (in English as Season of Migration to the North, 1969) Season of Migration to the North is narrated by a young man who returns to his village of Wad Hamad in the northern Shamaliyah province in Sudan, after

tudying in Europe for seven years "[4] (Wachtel,2002),eager to make a contribution to the new postcolonial life of his country. Once back, the narrator discovers a stranger among the familiar faces of childhood the enigmatic Mustafa Sa’eed. Sa'eed takes the young man into his confidence, "telling him the story of his own years in London in the early part of the twentieth century, of his brilliant career as an economist, and of the series of fraught and deadly relationships with European women that led to a terrible public reckoning and his return to his native land" [5] (Lalami, n.d). Salih achieved immediate acclaim when theSeason of Migration to the North was first published in Beirut in 1966. In 2001, the book was declared “the most important Arabic novel of the 20th century” by the Arab Literary Academy.[6] The novel was also banned in Saleh's native Sudan for a few years despite the fact that it won him prominence and fame worldwide[3] (Tayeb Salih (n.d)). However, the novel was adapted in a theater production and was directed by Ouriel Zohar. Actor Mohammed Bakri received the Best Actor award at the Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre in 1993 in his role in it. Urs' al-Zayn, 1969 (know in English as The Wedding of Zein) "The Wedding of Zein is a comic novella by Sudanese author Tayeb Salih centering on the unlikely nuptials of the town eccentric, a fellow named Zein. Tall and odd-looking, with just two teeth in his mouth, Zein has made a reputation for himself as the man who falls in love over and over with girls who promptly marry other men- to the point where mothers seek him out in hopes that he will draw the eye of available suitors to their eligible daughters."[7] (The Boston Bibiophile, 2010) The “The Wedding of Zein” was made into a drama in Libya and won Kuwaiti filmmaker, Khalid Siddiq, an award in the Cannes Festival in the late 1970s.