| Tayeb Salih's novels and short stories form one continuous narrative of the life of several generations in a fictional village in northern Sudan. From Salih's early short stories and sketches to his latest novel, that narrative reflects the development of the author's art, his sociohistorical vision, and the unfolding modern history of his native Sudan and the Arab world. This study undertakes a more comprehensive analysis of Tayeb Salih's fiction than has been attempted before, analyzes its engagements with Arabic and European literatures, and contextualizes its intervention in the cultural and cross-cultural debates which have shaped its times.;Salih's work situates itself at the most critical juncture in modern Arab history, the contact with the West in the colonial and postcolonial period. If on the metaphysical level, it is reasonable to say that Salih's fiction is about the nature and the multiple forms of Good and Evil, on the level of history it is about the conflict of the Arab Islamic and Western cultures in the age of science, colonialism, and neocolonialism. However, there is nowhere to be found in Salih a one-to-one correspondence between the two levels. The West is neither Good nor Evil, and that goes for "Us" as well. His scathing critique of colonialism goes hand-in-hand with his attack on gender politics, which draws a strong parallel between traditional patriarchy and colonial violence. There is throughout Salih's fiction a relentless critique of any form of chauvinism, dogmatism, or bigotry---be it cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, or religious.;Each episode, especially the long narratives, is a comment on the period in the life of the Arab nation during which it was written. Salih's main narrator is constantly engaged in recollection, reorganization, and interpretation of the past. What he remembers and what he forgets, what he understands and what he does not, and his quest for identity and vision, all revolve around the concern for Good and Evil, freedom and oppression, cultural values and their mediation and transformation in, through, and as a result of, encountering the Other. |
