Season of Migration to the North

Chapters 1-2

Reading Check

1. Because, contrary to their previous beliefs, Europeans “were, with minor differences, exactly like them” (Chapter 1)

2. “[A]n uncircumcised infidel for a wife” (Chapter 1)

3. His birth certificate, Sudanese passport, and British passport (Chapter 1)

4. The opportunity to go to school (Chapter 2)

5. As “a European woman just like Mrs. Robinson, its arms embracing me, its perfume and the odour of its body filling my nostrils.” (Chapter 2)

6. A lecturer in Economics at London University (Chapter 2)

Short Answer

1. Mustafa is a recent transplant to the village from the city of Khartoum. The narrator notices him as someone who does not say much and is well-respected in the village. (Chapter 1)

2. During an evening of drinking, Mahjoub invites Mustafa to join them. Although he initially refuses to drink, the alcohol relaxes him, and he recites a poem in perfect English. The narrator is shocked and immediately confronts him at the party and the next day. The next day, Mustafa insists that the narrator did not take his words seriously. (Chapter 1)

3. Mustafa excels at school with ease, eventually finishing all of the educational opportunities in Khartoum by the age of 12. His headmaster recommends that he continues his education elsewhere, and Mustafa selects Cairo. At the age of 15, he leaves Cairo to study in London. (Chapter 2)

4. Mustafa admits that he killed his wife, Jean Morris. Additionally, many girls he was intimate with died by suicide. Professor Foster-Keen saves Mustafa from capital punishment by “turn[ing] the trial into a conflict between two worlds, a struggle of which [Mustafa] was one of the victims.” (Chapter 2)

5. Isabella Seymour is a woman Mustafa meets 30 years after the death of Jean Morris. He sees her at an event in Hyde Park and begins to court her. She eventually dies by suicide. (Chapter 2)

Chapters 3-4

Reading Check

1. Fear (Chapter 3)

2. The narrator is named the guardian of Mustafa’s two sons. (Chapter 3)

3. The “hullabaloo” of false political promises (Chapter 4)

4. The “germ of this infection” (Chapter 4)

5. “[T]o the north” (Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. The narrator learns from the civil servant that Mustafa was at the top of his class at Gordon College. The narrator and Mustafa’s paths mirror each other because they were originally from Sudan, followed by Cairo and then London, before resettling in rural Sudan. (Chapter 3)

2. Mustafa was nicknamed “the black Englishman” at Gordon College by his peers because he excelled at the English language. This name is significant since the dominant belief at the school was that “the English language was the key to the future: no one had a chance without it.”  (Chapter 3)

3. The Englishman (Richard) notes that Mustafa represents a type of man who had the potential to initiate real change if he had not been caught up in the “buffoonery” of the circles in London, as well as with his problematic economic beliefs. The young man (Mansur) argues that the problem of capitalism was transmitted from colonialism, while Richard counterpoints that postcolonialism is just neo-colonialism. The narrator remarks that although this conversation is heavy in topic, the mood of the men is still jovial. (Chapter 3)

4. Mustafa asks the narrator to support his family after his death, as well as to allow him to speak freely about the secret he told him years before; in particular, he wants the narrator to share Mustafa’s true past with Mustafa’s sons, as he does not want them to be harmed by his past mistakes. Mustafa chooses the narrator for this task because Mustafa “glimpsed in [him] a likeness to [his] grandfather.” (Chapter 4)

Chapters 5-6

Reading Check

1. The height (“a couch raised high off the floor indicates vanity; a low one humility”) (Chapter 5)

2. That Mustafa was “the best example of the fact that [their] civilizing mission in Africa is of no avail” (Chapter 6)

3. Because, in this instance, he was “the colonizer” (Chapter 6)

4. Because Mahjoub “influence[s] actual life in the country” as opposed to civil servants who are “of no consequence” (Chapter 6)

5. That he is in love with Hosna (Chapter 6)

Short Answer

1. The narrator uses a simile to describe his grandfather “like the sayal bushes in the deserts of the Sudan, thick of bark and sharp of thorn, defeating death because they ask so little of life.” He finds it remarkable that his grandfather is almost 100 years old despite all the difficult living conditions. (Chapter 5)

2. Bint Majzoub is a wealthy widow of eight husbands who is good friends with the narrator’s grandfather. She defies traditional gender norms with her “uninhibited speech” and she “smoke[s], drink[s] and swear[s] on oath of divorce like a man.” (Chapter 5)

3. In the narrator’s grandfather’s home, the group has an inhibited conversation about the pleasures of sex, different marriage partners, and frequent divorces. The group believes in the importance of polygamy and teases the narrator for his lack of sexual experience and decision to be a “one-woman” man. (Chapter 5)

4. Wad Rayyes asks the narrator to ask Hosna about a marriage proposal. Hosna is adamantly against the idea and refuses to marry any other man. (Chapter 6)

Chapters 7-8

Reading Check

1. “[U]nifying educational methods” among African countries (Chapter 8)

2. To tell the narrator to marry her (Chapter 8)

3. “Good Riddance!” (Chapter 8)

Short Answer

1. The narrator shares in a drunken stupor that there are no treasures in the locked room in Mustafa’s house. He also states that Mustafa is “a lie,” comparing him to “the Prophet El-Kidr, suddenly making his appearance and as suddenly vanishing.” (Chapter 7)

2. They learn from the stranded government officials that a woman has killed her husband in a nearby village. The narrator immediately realizes it is Hosna, and he writes to Mrs. Robinson (the former guardian of Mustafa while he studied in Cairo). (Chapter 7)

3. After inquiring about the murder with several villagers, the narrator finally learns the truth from Bint Majzoub. She tells the narrator that after two weeks of Hosna avoiding her new husband, Wad Rayyes, the villagers heard screams one night only to discover that “every inch of Bint Mahmoud’s body was covered in bites and scratches” and “Wad Rayyes had been stabbed more than ten times.” As a result, they both died. (Chapter 8)

4. The narrator becomes angry after seeing the lack of response from his friend in defending Hosna and hearing that she “wasn’t worth burying.” In an out-of-body experience, he tries to strangle his friend. (Chapter 8)

Chapters 9-10

Reading Check

1. “[W]here Mustafa Sa’eed had left off” (Chapter 9)

2. Arabic books (Chapter 9)

3. “[T]o make the northern shore” (Chapter 10)

Short Answer

1. In addition to a massive collection of English books and furniture from Europe, the narrator finds photographs from Mustafa’s travels in Cairo and London. Many photographs include the girls he seduced and who eventually died by suicide, including Sheila Greenwood, Isabella Seymour, and Ann Hammond. As he views the photos, he recalls Mustafa’s prior narrative of how he seduced each girl and how each girl was fascinated by his religious and ethnic background. (Chapter 9)

2. “Moozie” is Mrs. Robinson’s “pet name” for Mustafa. In her response to the narrator’s letter, she writes of her failed attempts to keep in contact with Mustafa and his inability to show happiness to people “other than to those he really loved and was loved by.” She also reveals that she is writing a book on her late husband and Mustafa’s life, to which she will donate part of the royalties to Mustafa’s family. (Chapter 9)

3. Mustafa and Jean have a tumultuous, violent relationship characterized by abuse, lust, and torture. In their final moments together, Jean begs Mustafa to stab her as they begin sexual intercourse, which Mustafa describes as “a single point before and after which nothing existed.” (Chapter 9)