The Role of the Narrator in Tayeb Salih's Novels

Author : Nawal Alhasan

Abstract :This paper investigates the narrative structure of Tayeb Salih's novel (Season of Migration to the North), focusing primarily on the narrator's role as a cultural mediator, imagination initiator and events teller. The study shows how Salih formed his narrator to dynamically clarify and manifest the Sudanese community's characteristics and beliefs. Narration as an artistic tool reflects indigenous knowledge systems, oral traditions, and cultural memory. The readership accepts it out of curiosity and suspense. Cleverly using the storyteller, Salih always succeeds in reflecting on the distance from the community, as well as its closeness to it. This contrast highlights representational characters that lightly face social conventions and let the narrative voice influence group impressions. Following postcolonial theory and narratology, this paper examines how a narrative voice can create meanings, support local values, and promote intercultural awareness as well as help globalizing it through means like translation. This case study advances general discussions about the pedagogical function of literature in postcolonial worlds. It examines how narration may help reflect cultural education, social integration, and cross-national communication. The paper finally points to the relevance of narration as a vehicle of knowledge transmission and identity formation within the colonialized countries by looking into how Salih's narrator takes the reader through the text. The article applies to scholars, researchers, and educators interested in literature, narrative theory, postcolonialism, and how they interact with social learning and cultural education

Keywords :Narrative structure, cultural mediation, postcolonialism, knowledge transmission,

Conference Name :International Conference on English Studies, Women Empowerment, Education & Social Sciences (ICESWEESS-25)

Conference Place Hamburg, Germany

Conference Date 6th Jun 2025