Identity Is Defined As An Abiding Sense Of The Self And The Relationship Of The Self To The World

Question: Identity is defined as “an abiding sense of the self and the relationship of the self to the world”. Discuss with reference to Tayeb Salih’s novel. Answer:Tayeb Salih’s novel Season of Migration to the North is a classic Arabic novel that explores the question of identity in postcolonial Sudan. In the novel, the unnamed narrator and Mustafa Saeed suffer from identity crisis as a result of their encounter with the West. Tayib Salih himself had a similar journey to his characters. He was born and raised in Sudan in 1929, then he went to London in 1952 to complete his education. He spent many years in Europe, and his encounter with the West shaped his writing. The novel begins with the narrator returning to his hometown by the Nile, Wad Hamid, after many years in England where he was pursuing a doctoral degree in literature. When he comes back, he finds Mustafa Saeed, a stranger to him, and later on he finds out that Mustafa Saeed spent twenty-five years in Europe pursuing his education and his career before he came to settle in Wad Hamid. Both characters do not feel like they fully belong either in the East or