Long before Samuel Huntington's famous book "The Clash of Civilization" came out in 1996 and brought to the forefront the argument that the conflicts of the future would be between civilizations defined by culture and gave Islam and the West as one of the five examples, a brilliant fiction book on the subject had been written by Sudanese author Tayeb Salih back in 1966.

 "The Season of Migration to the North" dealt with intellectuals torn between Europe, where they had spent some years, and their native Sudan. “I have redefined the so-called East-West relationship as essentially one of conflict, while it had previously been treated in romantic terms" Salih was once quoted as saying in an interview in the Arabic Press.

 Tayeb Salih died on Wednesday in London. He was 80. This is a link to his obit in the New York Times.