/ 18 February 2009

Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih dies in London

Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, who won fame with his 1966 novel Season of Migration to the North, died in London on Wednesday at the age of about 80, a friend and associate said.

Salih, who was born in northern Sudan in 1929, died around dawn, Ezzat el-Kamhawy, editor of the Egyptian literary publication Akhbar al-Adab, told Reuters.

Salih, one of the best known and most translated Arabic novelists of the 20th century, studied in Britain and spent much of his working life in Europe.

He was a broadcaster for the BBC Arabic Service and worked at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in Paris. He also worked in Qatar.

His experience of Britain was central to Season of Migration to the North, which deals with colonialism and sexuality from the point of view of a Sudanese outsider.

In 2001 the Damascus-based Arab Literary Academy declared the book ”the most important Arabic novel of the 20th century”. — Reuters