Reflections prompted by the death of Tayeb Salih

I was greatly saddened to learn today that, earlier this week, Tayeb Salih died.  Salih wrote Season of Migration to the North, a book that is, in my estimation, the 20th century's most perceptive work about power dynamics (West and East, white and black, male and female, Christian and Muslim).  It is also gorgeously written (as rendered in translation by Denys Johnson-Davies).

Born in Sudan, Salih's views were nuanced and complex, suggesting that he had personal experience striking a balance between traditional, even pre-modern, roots and a contemporary urban existence.  In his writing, he was neither ideological nor romantic; in Season, he didn't glorify the simple peasant life or uniformly condemn colonization.  Sex, like birth and death, humiliation and anger, is an aspect of human behavior without which you cannot understand the whole; and as such, he wrote openly about it.

Contrast Salih's writing, and his legacy, with the unfortunate situation of surrounding the Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature in Dubai.  After the Festival declined Geraldine Bedell's new book, The Gulf Between Us, because it contains a gay character, Margaret Atwood announced that she'd be boycotting the Festival, consistent with her obligations as vice-president of International PEN. 

Conference organizers objected that the topic of homosexuality would offend readers in the region, but this reason seems inadequate.  People who might be offended, after all, are free not to read the book.  In any event, ideas that offend may nonetheless have value. 

Homosexuality, like the forced marriage, subsequent rape, and murders that occur in Season, is a part of human experience.  Whether we acknowledge it or ignore it, whether it offends us or attracts us, homosexuality exists.  Without examining it openly, we impoverish our understanding of the whole.

Season, which was originally written in Arabic, is widely-acknowledged as one of the foundational works of modern Arab literature.  A literary festival in Dubai has options as to the traditions on which it wants to build, and Salih's legacy is one of them.  I am profoundly grieved that, in the wake of Salih's death, it is not doing so.  An Arab literature grounded in, and expanding upon, the richness of Salih's understanding of humanity would be a resource for the whole world.

(Photo from Canadian Broadcasting Company.)