The colonial disease and intercultural encounters in Salih's Season of Migration to the North and Bowles's "A Distant Episode" and the Sheltering Sky

Abstract

This project aims to prove that colonialism is a lethal disease that can contaminate both the colonized and the colonizer and lead to tragic repercussions upon both groups. The symptoms and effects of this disease are examined through a close analysis of Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North and Paul Bowles’s “A Distant Episode” and The Sheltering Sky. I argue that the manifestations of this disease are directly seen in the condescending attitude of the colonizer and resentful behavior of the colonized, resulting in failed intercultural encounters, identity loss, and even death. The dangerous legacy of colonialism cannot be transcended due to its pre-existing unequal binary division and essentialist views of identities as being fixed and immutable, which fuel the colonized with a desire to mimic or revenge and feed the colonizer with more power and might. Each literary work is read using different post-colonial theories form prominent authors in this field including Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, and Edward Said.