Tayeb Salih is internationally known for his classic novel Season of Migration to the North. With humour, wit and erudite poetic insights, Salih shows another side in this affectionate memoir of his exuberant and irrepressible friend Mansi Yousif Bastawrous, sometimes known as Michael Joseph and sometimes as Ahmed Mansi Yousif. Playing Hardy to Salih’s Laurel Mansi takes centre stage among memorable 20th-century arts and political figures, including Samuel Beckett, Margot Fonteyn, Omar Sharif, Arnold Toynbee, Richard Crossman and even the Queen, but always with Salih’s poet “Master” al-Mutanabbi ready with an adroit comment.

Tayeb Salih (1929–2009) is renowned as one of the 20th-century’s greatest authors, particularly for his novel Season of Migration to the North, translated into English by his friend Denys Johnson-Davies, which was declared ‘the most important Arabic novel of the 20th century’ by the Arab Literary Academy in 2001. It remains a pivotal point in post-colonial narrative and has been translated into more than 20 languages. It has never been out of print in English, in a number of different editions. Tayeb Salih was born in Karmakol, near al-Dabbah in northern Sudan. His other works include The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid, The Wedding of Zein, A Handful of Dates and Bandarshah, all translated by Denys Johnson-Davies. For 10 years, he also wrote a weekly column for the London-based Al-Majalla magazine.