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Zakaria Tamer
(1931- )
Born in 1931 in the Al-Basha district of
Damascus, Zakaria Tamer is largely self-educated and worked
as an apprentice to a craftsman. He has worked in television and
journalism.
Most of Zakaria Tamer's stories deal with peoples’ inhumanity
towards each other, the oppression of the poor by the rich and of
the weak by the strong. The political and social problems of his own
country,
Syria, and of the Arab world, are reflected in the stories
and sketches in the satirical style typical of his writing. He is
also the foremost author of children’s stories in Arabic, and one of
the most translated short story writer in the Arab world.
His first stories were published in 1957. Since then he has
published eleven collections of short stories, two collections of
satirical articles and numerous children’s books, which have
appeared in
Beirut and
Damascus. His works have been translated into many
languages, with two collections in English, Tigers on the Tenth
Day (trans. Denys Johnson-Davies, Quartet 1985) and Breaking
Knees, published June 2008.
He was awarded the Owais Prize for the Novel in 2001.
Read
Arabic Short Stories.
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