Season of Migration to the North Characters

For the IB Literature Class, used gemini ai (not everything is accurate, please double check)

Narrator (unnammed)

• born into a normal farming family in Wad Hamid

• Highly intelligent; earned a doctorate in British poetry in London

• feels obligated to use his education to advance Sudan (only independent for 13 years)

  • finds it difficult due to his passive personality and government corruption 

• becomes the guardian/executor of Mustafa Sa’eed’s estate and family (hosna and sons) 

• realizes he is in love with Hosna but fails to intervene to stop her forced marriage 

Mustafa Sa’eed

• in his forties, moved to Wad Hamid, married Hosna Bint Mahmoud, and remained a mysterious figure

• highly intelligence, attended university in the UK

• tried to be an academic in the UK; pursed a life of sordid love affairs that lead to murder 

• murder his english wife, Jean Morris 

• life contrasts with the narrator’s benign civil service 

Hajj Ahmed

• narrator’s grandfather

• lives a happy, stable life of prayer and socializing

• representing simple, virtuous country life the narrator and Mustafa yearn for

• friends with Wadd Rayyes and Bint Mazjoub

Narrator’s Father

• relatively minor figure; kind + supportive

• fundamentally conservative; cannot understand the narrator’s objections to the oppression of women in village culture

Hosna Bint Mahmoud

• beautiful, modest wife of Mustafa Sa’eed

• After Mustafa dies, she lives alone, caring for two sons and rejecting all suitors

• forced to marry Wadd Rayyes

• resists the forced marriage and murder Wadd Rayyes, committing suicide herself

Wadd Rayyes

• Lifelong womanizer in his seventies in the “present-day” section 

• already has several wives but is determined to marry Hosna Bint Mahmoud after Mustafa’s death

• Murdered by Hosna on their wedding night

Bint Majzoub

• famous for speaking bluntly about sex; now in her eighties

• successively married five husbands (all whom died)

• only village woman who drinks + socialize with the men

• friends with Wad Rayyes, Bakri, and the narrator’s grandfather

• first to hear Hosna’s screams, mistakenly assuming they were from an orgasm

Mahjoub

• narrator’s good friend from elementary school

• did not purse secondary school; choose to be a farmer

• an adult, he is the charman of the agricultural project committee and a major figure in village politics 

Mahmoud (Hosna’s Father)

• prominent farmer who arranges the marriage between his daugther, Hosna, and Mustafa Sa’eed 

• judged by some village elders for marrying his daughter to an outsider 

Bakri

• friend of the narrator’s grandfather

• takes a moderate stance on female circumcision

• tries to discourage Wad Rayyes from marrying Josna, urging him to focus on his spiritual preparation for death

Mahmoud

• eldest son of Hosna and Mustafa 

Sa’eed

• Youngest son of Hosna and Mustafa, named for his father 

Sa’eed (village man)

• shopkeeper 

Mabrouka

• Wad Rayyes’s eldest wife

• unfazed by his death

• believes he deserved it 

Wad Baseer

• accomplished engineer put out of business by store-bought items like doors and water pumps instead of water-wheels

Wad Basheer

• long dead 

• Bint Majzoub’s favorite of her eight husbands

Jean Morris

• first Mustafa Sa’eed cruel, manipulative first wife (UK)

• rejected and humiliated him before marrying him

• stabbed to death by Mustafa during sex 

Ann Hammond

• Mustafa’s first girlfriend in Britain (oxford student) 

• killed herself by gas, leaving a note blamming her death on Mustafa

• privileged twenty-year-old student of oriental languages at Oxford 

Sheila Greenwood

• Mustafa's second girlfriend in London.

• Charming and innocent.

• Killed herself upon realizing Mustafa did not intend to marry her

• daughter of Scottish coal workers

Mr. Robinson

• Headmaster of Mustafa's secondary school in Cairo.

• Fascinated by Arabic language/architecture; took Mustafa under his wing.

Mrs. Robinson

• Kindly wife of Mr. Robinson; took Mustafa under her wing.

• Mustafa developed a crush on her and remembers her fondly.

Mr. Stockwell

• Headmaster of Mustafa Sa'eed's elementary school in Khartoum.

Sir Arthur Higgins

• Principal Prosecutor in Mustafa Sa'eed’s murder trial.

• Mustafa's former criminal law professor at Oxford; was friendly with Mustafa before the trial.

• womanizing bohemian

Professor Maxwell Foster-Keen

• Prominent right-wing London figure and Mustafa Sa’eed’s former professor at Oxford.

• Despite disliking Mustafa (and Africans), he earnestly defends him for murdering Jean Morris due to the case's importance.

The Mamur

• Generic title for a high-level civil servant; retired.

• A classmate of Mustafa Sa'eed; shared memories with the narrator on a train.

  • reflections on working as a tax collector during the British occupation of Sudan

Richard

• Englishman

• attended Oxford after Mustafa 

• Works at the ministry of Finance in Khartoum 

Mansour

• left-wind Sundanese civil servant who argues with Richard at a Party

  • in chapter 3

Abdurrahman

• One of the narrator’s uncles

Abdul Mannan

• One of the narrator’s uncles. He is cynical and believes that the government cannot do anything right.

Abdul Karim

• One of the narrator’s uncles. Although most men in the village only take one wife, A.K has been married several times, and has also had affairs.