The main concern of the novel is the impact of British colonialism and European modernity on rural African societies in general and Sudanese culture and identity in particular.

[1] The novel reflects the conflicts of modern Sudan and depicts the brutal history of European colonialism as shaping the reality of contemporary Sudanese society.

Mawsim al-Hijrah ilâ al-Shamâl is considered to be an important turning point in the development of postcolonial narratives that focus on the encounter between East and West.

Mawsim al-Hijrah ilâ al-Shamâl is the story of the “traveled man,” the African who has returned from schooling abroad, told to an unspecified audience by an unnamed narrator.

[5] On his arrival home, the narrator encounters a new villager named Mustafa Sa'eed who exhibits none of the adulation for his achievements that most others do, and he displays an antagonistically aloof nature.

Mustafa betrays his past one drunken evening by wistfully reciting poetry in fluent English, leaving the narrator resolute to discover the stranger's identity.

In the final chapter, the narrator is floating in the Nile, precariously between life and death, and resolves to rid himself of Mustafa's lingering presence, and to stand as an influential individual in his own right.

[1] Thus, Ami Elad-Boulaski writes that Salih's depiction of Wad Hamid is more fully realized because a reader can track the development of characters throughout multiple novels and short stories.

[9] Season of Migration to the North was initially published in 1966, in serialized form, by Hiwar, a Beirut-based literary magazine that was covertly established and funded by the CIA.