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Sa’eed’s London Apartment
The secret room which Sa’eed builds in his house in the small village of Wad Hamid in Sudan represents his link to western culture. The room is lined from floor to ceiling with books in English (none of the texts are in Sa’eed’s native language of Arabic). Furthermore, the room contains a real English fireplace—a symbol of British culture, which is a strange artifact to maintain in a small village on the banks of the Nile river in Sudan, located close to the equator, where there is no need of fireplaces. The pictures, paintings, and documents from Sa’eed’s life in England, also contained in the room, further attest to his links to the western culture in which he has spent many of the formative years of his life. Sa’eed’s secret room in Sudan stands in contrast to his London apartment. While the apartment in London embodies a fetishized version of his “eastern” roots, the room in Sudan represents his links to the west. Taken together, the two rooms suggest the extent to which Sa’eed is caught between these two cultures—western, English culture on the one hand, and his native eastern culture on the other.
Sa’eed’s Secret Room in Sudan Quotes in Season of Migration to the North
The Season of Migration to the North quotes below all refer to the symbol of Sa’eed’s Secret Room in Sudan. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 9
Quotes
I struck a match. The light exploded in my eyes and out of the darkness there emerged a frowning face with pursed lips that I knew but could not place. I moved towards it with hate in my heart. It was my adversary Mustafa Sa’eed. […] I found myself standing face to face with myself.
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How ridiculous! A fireplace—imagine it! A real English fireplace with all the bits and pieces.
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“How marvellous your black colour is!” she would say to me—“the colour of magic and mystery and obscenities.”
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“In London I took her to my house, the den of lethal lies that I had deliberately built up, lie upon lie: the sandalwood and incense; the ostrich feathers and ivory and ebony figurines; the paintings and drawings of forests of palm trees along the shores of the Nile, boats with sails like doves’ wings, suns setting over the mountains of the Red Sea, camel caravans wending their way along sand dunes on the borders of the Yemen, baobab tress in Kordofan, naked girls from the tribes of Zandi.”
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“The moments of ecstasy were in fact rare; the rest of the time we spent in a murderous war in which no quarter was given. The war invariably ended in my defeat. When I slapped her, she would slap me back and dig her nails into my face...”
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Sa’eed’s Secret Room in Sudan Symbol Timeline in Season of Migration to the North
The timeline below shows where the symbol Sa’eed’s Secret Room in Sudan appears in Season of Migration to the North. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...letter, Sa’eed notes that he is also leaving the narrator the keys to enter a secret room in his house, which contains notes, diaries, and mementoes from his time in England. Sa’eed...
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Chapter 6
...She tells the narrator that Mustafa used to spend a lot of time inside his secret room , which she has never entered, and that in his sleep, he would sometimes mutter...
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Chapter 7
...through the endless desert, he is haunted by thoughts of Mustafa Sa’eed, Hosna, and the secret room to which Mustafa has left him the keys. He thinks of how the various women...
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Chapter 9
...shortly after learning of the details of Hosna’s murder-suicide, the narrator stands outside of the secret room in Mustafa Sa’eed’s house. He enters. Inside, he strikes a match and sees a face....
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Chapter 10
The narrator enters the Nile river, naked. He has left Mustafa’s secret room , without burning it. Instead, his feet led him to the river at dawn, hoping...
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