Gothic Modernisms: Modernity and the Postcolonial Gothic in Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North

Abstract

This article discusses the intersection between modernism and the Gothic, interrogating the conventional periodisation of modernism and extending the scope of both modernist and gothic studies. I propose that Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North is a response to Sudanese postcolonial modernity through the mode of Gothic modernism. The modern Gothic is symptomatic of the contradictions fundamental to modernity as the ‘regressive’ past continues to haunt the ‘progressive’ present. I extend my discussion of modernism, modernity and the Gothic to debates around the postcolonial Gothic, considering the various ways in which the uncanny and gothic doubling are paradigmatic of the postcolonial experience. Tayeb Salih's novel is a departure from hegemonic conceptualisations of modernity and modernism, using the Gothic to critique Western metanarratives of historical linearity, progress and modernisation.