The Fallacies of Bridging the East and West in Tayeb Salih’s 'Season of Migration to the North' and Laila Halaby’s 'Once in a Promised Land'

Abstract

Objectives: The paper examines the role of two contemporary Arab novelists, Tayeb Salih and Laila Halaby, who depict the fallacies of bridging the East and West. Salih’s Season of Migration to the North (1966) and Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land (2007) tackle the social, cultural, political, historical, and religious factors and obstacles that resulted in widening the gap between the East and West. The aim of this study is to also trace how Salih’s and Halaby’s characters' attitudes towards this harmony between both cultures develop throughout the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. Methods: This paper employs a socio-political and cultural approach to discuss the role of the contemporary Arab intellectual in presenting the possibility of bridging the cultural and humanitarian gap between the East and West. Results: This study finds that there are two groups of Arab intellectuals: those haunted by violent memories of Western colonization, who are incapable of creating a harmonious relationship with the West, and the liberal Arab intellectuals who reflect a great readiness to assimilate into Western culture. Conclusions: This study concludes that all attempts by these characters to create harmony between the East and the West are futile.