A Comparative Study of Postcolonial Aspects in T. Salih’s Season of Migration to the North and C. Achebe’s No Longer at Ease

Abstract

This study aims at investigating aspects of coloniality in both novels of the title. The two works expose a number of the evils of coloniality like masked colonisation, stereotyping and hybridity. The coloniser’s appointing of national agents to run the country in the coloniser’s stead, raising nonentities on the political hierarchy and sowing seeds of hatred among citizens of the same nation will be discussed under the first subtitle, masked colonisation. Under the second, stereotyping and misrepresenting Africans will be investigated. The paper will discuss ideas of language, culture and religion when dealing with hybridity, the third concept in such a trichotomy, to show how these have been affected by colonisation. The paper will respond to the following questions: how do Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and Salih’s Season of Migration to the North question the credibility of achieving independence? How (and why) did the (British) coloniser persistently stereotype African nations? How did the evil aftermaths of British colonialism reach and spoil the different aspects of the lives of the colonised nations, as shown in both?