Abstract

The novel Season of Migration to the North by the Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih investigates the relationship between sexuality and imperialism. Through a close textual analysis and through the lens of colonial discourse theory, this article examines Mustafa Sa’eed’s, the protagonist’s, sexual crusades in the West and his peculiar mission of sexual retaliation against colonialism. Mustafa, a hypersexual and pathological conqueror, engages in multiple sexual liaisons with British women and becomes a narcotic hero whom they cannot live without, for he represents their sexual fantasies and fulfills their sexual desires. Mustafa’s English partners nonetheless fail to recognize him as anything but an Oriental and exotic Other; in contrast, Mustafa views them as mere prey and objects. The analysis reveals that Mustafa purges the history of Africa through his racially motivated sexual exploitation of his English lovers and his decision to murder his English wife, Jean Morris, as a form of revenge. In this context, this article affirms that Mustafa’s sexual exploitation reinforces colonial stereotypes of the hypersexual Black man, and that, as Mustafa fails to disentangle himself from colonial memories, sexual vengeance exacerbates the interracial tension and brings destruction to him and his victims: the colonizer and the colonized. The article concludes that Mustafa’s unceremonious disappearance from the novel; the tragic death of his Sudanese wife, Hosna; and his failure to effectively liberate her from the shackles of the Sudanese patriarchy all demonstrate that sexual vengeance is not an effective tool for decolonization, and therefore, decolonization based on the sexual exploitation of women is futile and absurd.