The life and culture of Tayeb Salih

Abstract

Tayeb Salih was a Sudanese novelist who is widely known and esteemed through his novel ‘Season of Migration to the North’. He was generally characterized as the ‘genius of the modern Arab novel’ by the scholarly reviewer. Emerging from a modest backdrop of religious mentors and small farmers, Tayeb Salih established his narrative fixed to his homeland, summarizing the cooperative rural life. In a time when social assessment, cruel realities of life and pledged literature dominated Arabic literature, he crushed the indifference with his remarkable ideologies of his cultural background and religious upbringing. After a moderation in teaching, journalism and broadcasting, he started to writing and composed some of the most distinguished literary works. His ‘Mawsim al-Hijra ila al-Shamal’ (Season of Migration to the North’) is considered as typical work of fiction of his literary career, which made him one of the greatest Arabic authors of the 20th century. Such was his popularity that his novels have seen translated in more than 20 languages. Some of his famous novels are ‘Urs al-Zayn’, ‘Al-Rajul al Qubrosi’, ‘Doumat Wad Hamid’, and ‘A Handful of Dates’. He introduced a Yearly Award to encourage and appreciate young and formative writers.