Time of the northward migration

"One of the most beautiful texts in Arabic literature" (Tahar Ben Jelloun). The novel is set in a small village on the Nile, an archaic world with values that have been handed down for thousands of years. The river is the nourishing and deadly force. Mustafa Said, the handsome fifty-year-old "stranger", has been living there for five years. Nobody knows his story, but he is now accepted, even appreciated, and married to a woman from the village. But one day his past catches up with him and he reveals his secret to a young man who has just finished his studies in England. In confidence, he tells him about his "northern migration", which led him via Cairo to London, about his brilliant academic career, his first marriage and his erotic adventures, all of which ended tragically. Salich describes the clash of two cultures with great linguistic power and formal sophistication. In 2001, the Arab Academy of Literature in Damascus declared "Time of the Northward Migration" to be the most important Arab novel of the 20th century.