Season of Migration to the North

The narrator visits his grandfather’s house and walks in on a conversation between his grandfather and his old friends Bint Majzoub, Wad Rayyes, and Bakri.  A ribald conversation full of laughter and teasing ensues. Wad Rayyes, a man famed for his many wives and his high sexual appetite, tells the story of making love to a slave girl, thus leading his father to marry him off to his first wife. Bint Majzoub, an elderly widow, teases him—and is teased in return for her eight husbands and equally high appetite for sex. The two discuss whether they will ever wed again, and Bakri asks Wad Rayyes, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for having a wedding every year?” (65). Wad Rayyes becomes angry, but then praises the pleasures of fornication, especially uncircumcised Western women. He asks the narrator about his experience with Western women. When the narrator reveals he has none, Wad Rayyes condemns the men of a younger generation for being “one-woman men” (67), opposed to polygamy. 

The group briefly debates the merits of female circumcision, but the conversation quickly turns back to their respective sexual conquests and experiences. After laughing uproariously, each of them asks for God’s forgiveness.