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Our selection this month: A work of fiction by the Sudanese author, Tayeb Salih. I read this book in college in a class called "Exile and Nomadism." I read it ten years and even though this book was written in the late 60's, it's a dark satire about the destruction caused by colonialism.

Tayeb Salih's great novel is a compelling satirical rewrite of Joseph Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS. In Salih's version, instead of a European intellectual traveling to Africa to be corrupted by his contact with "primitive savagery," the protagonist starts out as an idealistic young man from Sudan who travels northward to Europe, where he is undone by corruption, decadence, and the mutual destructiveness of unhappy love affairs. The novel is cleverly written and well translated, with terrific insights into the relationships of southern and northern hemispheres; the colonized to their colonizers; Arabs and Europeans; and men and women.