Zakaria Tamer

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زكريا تامر
Zakaria Tamer

Zakaria Tamer Syrian Writer
Born January 2, 1931 (1931-01-02) (age 77)
Damascus, Syria
Occupation Short story writer, Newspaper Columnist, Newspaper Editor
Nationality Syrian
Writing period 1960-Present
Genres short story, Children's Literature

Zakaria Tamer (Arabic: زكريا تامر‎), also transliterated Zakariya Tamir (strict transliteration Zakariyyā Tāmir), (born January 2, 1931 in Damascus, Syria) is an influential master of the Arabic-language short story.

He is one of the most important and widely read and translated short story writers in the Arab world, as well as being the foremost author of children’s stories in Arabic.[1]He also writes children's stories and works as a freelance journalist, writing satirical columns in newspapers.

His volumes of short stories, are often reminiscent of folktales, and are renowned for their relative simplicity on the one hand and the complexity of their many potential references on the other. They often have a sharp edge and are often a surrealistic protest against political or social oppression and exploitation. Most of his stories deal with man's inhumanity to man, likewise to woman, the oppression of the poor by the rich and of the weak by the strong.

To date he has written eleven short story collections, two satirical article collection and numerous children’s books.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Zakaria Tamer was born in 1931 in the Al-Basha district of Damascus. He was forced to leave school in 1944, at the age of thirteen in order to help provide for his family.[2] He was apprenticed to a blacksmith as a locksmith in a factory in the Al-Basha district of Damascus.[3] At the same time, as an autodidact, he spent many hours reading various books, he became interested in politics and was encouraged by contact with intellectuals to continue his education at night school. He read voraciously and was provoked by his reading, as he later said in an interview, "to create a voice which [he] hadn't been able to find [there]"[4]. His intention was to represent in his writing the very poor majority of men and women in Syria, with their joyless and restricted existence.

He began his literary career in 1957, when he published some stories in Syrian Journals. His first manuscript was noticed by Yusuf al-Khal, the poet, critic and editor of the magazine Shi'r ("Poetry") which at the time was acting as midwife to the birth of modern Arabic poetry. The talent that lay behind the poetical prose of theses stories, was so unlike anything being written in Arabic at the time, that Al-Khal decided to publish it, this became his first collection of short stories, which was entitled The Neighing of the White Steed.[5]

The collection brought him considerable attention and repute amount readers and critics.

[edit] 1960-1981

Zakaria Tamer
Zakaria Tamer

Following his literary success, which was reflected in the good reception of his first collection, he left his job as a blacksmith and embarked on a new career, as government official, as well as editor of several journals, including the cultural periodicals Al Mawqif al-Adabi, and Al Marifah, and the children’s magazine Usamah.

He was instrumental in the establishment of the Syrian Writers Union in Syria 1968. He was Elected member of the executive bureau responsible for the publishing and print, and was vice-president of the Union for four years.

In 1980 he was dismissed from editing the periodical al-Marifah, published by the Syrian Ministry of Culture, as a result of the publication of extracts from Abd al-Rahman al-kawakibi’s (1849-1902) book, Tabai al istibadad (“The Characteristics of Despotism, 1900), in which the author denounced tyranny and called for freedom. As a result of his dismissal, Tamer decided to travel to London, leaving his home country of Syria.[6]

[edit] 1980s onwards

Interest in Tamer’s works did not lessen after his immigration to Great Britain [7]. In the year 2000 the Syrian literary journal al-Mawqif al-adabī published five articles on Zakaria Tamer's fiction in a special issue. Among them there is a paper by Najm Abd Allāh Kāim on the genre to which Tamer’s works belong, pointing out the economy and ambiguity of the language by which he expresses the correlation between the narrative context and its implications, which is of fundamental importance for the aesthetic structure of Tamer’s short stories. Another scholar, Nādiyā Khūst, analyses Nidā Nū in particular, and notes the psychological paradox underlying the bizarre situations depicted in his stories.[8]

This paradox reveals the general qualities of Tamer’s creative technique, including the intermingling of farce and tragedy, of humor and seriousness.

From 1981-1982 he took charge of Al Dustoor magazine as Managing editor, he went on to be culture editor of Al Tadhamon magazine (1983-1988) and in became managing editor of Al Naqid magazine (1988-1993), and culture editor at Riyadh Al Rayes Publishing House.

He also wrote for various newspapers and periodicals published in London, including Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

[edit] Quotes

“ We are deceiving ourselves if we believe that a literary work written and published in a country where 70 per cent of the population is illiterate, can change the political and social life of the country..it is up to political organization..and not to romantic literature.. to change the present situation. ”

[edit] Awards

  • 2001: Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Foundation: Prize of Stories Novels & Drama [9]
  • 2002: Honoured and invested with the Syrian Order of Merit[10]

[edit] Themes In Writing

A common theme in his writing has been that the strongest of us can gradually be broken and tamed by those who wield the whip of power. Those who rule, Zakaria Tamer tells us in many a story, while devoid of all the noble qualities that should be theirs, possess the intuitive awareness of how to use the carrot and the stick. An Arab critic once contrasted him with Charles Darwin: One showing how humans developed from monkeys, the other showing how humans could be manipulated into becoming monkeys.

Another favorite themes, as seen in such stories as the "The Stale Loaf" and the "Room with Two Beds", the sexual frustration of the young in the Arab world and the toll that is exacted - particularly from the women - when sexual taboos are breached, or are thought to have been breached.

Though humor is not one of the ingredients of theses stories, the writer does allow himself an occasional sardonic grin at the forms of injustice to which man is subjected by his rulers, his fellow men and the circumstances of lives enclosed in routine of ill-rewarded work and un-fulfillment. Zakaria Tamer's world is Orwellian though unmistakably Arab. The secret police, with their physical brutalities, feature in many of the stories, as for instance in the dark-humored "A summary of What Happened to Mohammed al-Mahmoudi", where a harmless old man finds that even in death he is not immune from their attentions.

The directness and absence of embroidery with which Zakaria Tamer writes is a powerful weapon in giving distinctive form to the basic themes to which he returns again and again.

[edit] Works

To date he has published eleven collections of stories, two satirical articles' collections and dozens of children's books.

[edit] Short Story Collections

  • The Neighing of the White Steed(1960) صهيل الجواد الابي Ṣahīl al-Jawād al-Ābiyy
  • Spring In The Ashes, (1963) ربيع في الرماد Rabīʿ fī al-Ramād
  • The Thunder, (1970) الرعد Ar-Raʿad
  • Damascus Fire, (1973) دمشق الحرائق Dimeshq al-Ḥarāʼiq
  • Tigers on the Tenth Day, (1978) النمور في اليوم العاشر al-Numūr fī al-Yawm al-ʿĀshir
  • Noah's Summons, (1994),نداء نوح Nidāʼ Nūḥ
  • We Shall Laugh, (1998) سنضحك Sanaḍḥak
  • IF!, (1998) أف!
  • Sour Grapes, (2000) الحصرم Al-Ḥaṣram
  • Breaking The Spirits, (2002) تكسير ركب Taksīr Rukb
  • The Hedgehog, (2005) القنفذ Al-Qunfuḏ

[edit] Satiric articles' collections

  • Glories, Arabs, Glories, (1986) Amjad Ya Arab amjad
  • The Victims Satire Of His Killer, (2003)

[edit] Other Collections

  • Why the river Fell Silent, (1973) لماذا سكت النهر Limāḏā Sakata al-Nahr
  • The flower spoke to the bird, (1978) قالت الوردة للسنونو Qālit al-Warda Lilsununu

[edit] Editorial Work

  • 1960-1963, Writers and Publishing Dept. at Syria Ministry of Culture
  • 1963-1965, editor of weekly Al Mawqef Al Arabi, Syria
  • 1965-1966, Screenwriter for Jeddah TV, KSA
  • 1967, started his work at Syria Ministry of Information
  • 1967-1970, Head of Drama Department at Syrian TV
  • 1970-1971, Editor-in-Chief of kids Rafi magazine, Syria
  • 1972-1975, Editor-in-Chief of Al Mawqef Al Adabi magazine, Syria
  • 1975-1977, Editor-in-Chief of kids Osama magazine, Syria
  • 1978-1980, Editor-in-Chief of Al Ma’arifa magazine, Syria
  • 1980-1981, Syria Ministry of Culture
  • 1981-1982, Managing editor of Al Dustoor magazine, London
  • 1983-1988, Culture editor of Al Tadhamon magazine, London
  • 1988-1993, Managing editor of Al Naqid magazine and culture editor at Riyadh Al Rayes Publishing House, London

[edit] Other Activities

  • Co-founded Arab Writers Union in Syria 1969, member of its Executive Bureau, and Deputy Chairman for four years
  • Participated in many literary events in Arab countries
  • Jury member of many Arab and international literary competitions

[edit] Newspaper Columns

  • 1989-1994, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Wrote daily articles for Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, London
  • 2002, Azzaman Newspaper
  • 2006, Al Tawra Newspaper (Revolution)

[edit] See also


[edit] Notes

  1. ^ New Developments in the Arabic Short Story during the Seventies Moussa-Mahmoud, Fatma, British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, Page 109, 1983 03056139 Taylor & Francis Ltd.
  2. ^ A Reader of Modern Arabic Short Stories, Publisher: Saqi Books (April 1, 2000): ISBN: 0863561918
  3. ^ Ibrāhīm al-Arash, Ittijāhāt al-qiah fī Sūriyā bad al-arb al-ālamiyyah ath-thāniyah (Damascus: Dār as-Suāl, 1982), 273.
  4. ^ Al-Marifa, August 1972
  5. ^ Tigers on the Tenth Day and Other Stories By Denys Johnson-Davies(TRANSLATOR), Zakarīyā Tāmir, Zakaria Tamer, 1985, ISBN 0704324652
  6. ^ Damascene Shahrazad: The Images of Women in Zakariyya Tamir’s Short Stories Source: Hawwa 4, no. 1 (2006)
  7. ^ Najm Abd Allāh Kāim, “Zakariyyā Tāmir wa-tajribat al-kitābāt al-qaīrah,” in al-Mawqif al-adabī, no. 352 (Damascus: Ittiād al-Kuttāb al-Arab, 2000), 10.
  8. ^ [3] Nādiyā Khūst, “Qia Zakariyyā Tāmir al-jadīda,” ibid., 33
  9. ^ profile for Zakaria tamer at the Owais Cultural Foundation http://www.alowaisnet.org//en/controls/winner_details.aspx?Id=110
  10. ^ Three Syrian Intellectuals honored, Syria Live http://www.syrialive.net/arts/070202Three%20Syrian%20intellectuals%20honored.htm

[edit] References

  • Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century Vol. V (Supplement), New York: Ungar,1993.
  • Arab Culture 1977: Religious Identity and Radical Perspectives By Universit E Saint-Joseph, Published 1980, Dar El-Mashreq, ISBN 2721458035
  • Arabic Short Stories By Denys Johnson-Davies, 1983, Quartet Books Literature, ISBN 0704323672
  • Syria: Society, Culture, and Polity By Richard T. Antoun, ISBN 0791407136
  • Tigers on the Tenth Day and Other Stories By Denys Johnson-Davies(TRN), Zakarīyā Tāmir, Zakaria Tamer, 1985, ISBN 0704324652
  • Islam: Islam, state and politics By Bryan Stanley Turner, Published 2003 Routledge (UK), ISBN 041512347X
  • Dislocating Masculinity: comparative ethnographies By Andrea Cornwall, Nancy Lindisfarne, ISBN 0415079411
  • Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Modern Arabic Fiction An Anthology, ed , New York: Columbia University Press (2005)

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Selected studies

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Zakaria Tamer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tamir, zakariyya; tamer, zakariya, zakaria,
SHORT DESCRIPTION Syrian Writer of Short stories, Newspaper Columnist, Newspaper Editor
DATE OF BIRTH 01/02/1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Damascus, Syria
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH