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THE SHORT STORIES OF ZAKARIA TAMER the world of the creative work, with its distinctive atmosphere. In this Tamer has succeeded impressively. He has chosen a style that creates tension and anger in the story, pulling the reader from the realm of everyday life to plunge him into an atmosphere of magic brimming with secrets. We encounter many symbols, similes and metaphors in the language he employs. Tamer’s language is characterised by a poetic idiom that is mingled with a range of feelings and a variety of symbolic allusions, as well as a richness of imagination in his portrayals. Because the language of his stories relies on elements of inspiration it represents a halfway ZAKARIA TAMER Our Father Who Art in Heaven, and Our Killer Who Is on Earth Policemen dressed in black beat up an old man with an unkempt beard. Their beating was long and painful. Believing that any moment he was going to breathe his last and, bidding this short earthly life farewell, he cried out angrily: “There is no god but God.” But the beating became more intense and savage, accompanied by a reminder that there are two gods: one in Heaven who is obeyed sometimes, and one on earth who is always obeyed. Our Country There is a country that has baffled historians. Every time one of its rulers becomes convinced that he will occupy his throne forever, he flies from his palace to his grave like the flight of eagles and hawks, and no one walks in his funeral procession save his envied killer. TRANSLATED BY IBRAHIM MUHAWI Translated from Al-Mihmaz, Zakaria Tamer’s Facebook page, http://on.fb.me/1G5jkgp 100 BANIPAL 53 – SUMMER 2015
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MADE FOR EACH OTHER house between fiction and poetry. When the writer merges feelings and ideas, he starts to create complex poetic sentences, characterised by great eloquence and inspired images. This language differs from conventional language, consisting as it does of a series of short, compact sentences, full of inspiration. It also creates events, employs fables, and tends towards repetition, employing words in a new way for Tamer believes that “the short story is like an elegant room in need of a refined taste and sensibility to furnish it carefully; it is a form of literary expression capable of being renewed and developed”. Various translations into Turkish of Zakaria Tamer’s stories have been published in different literary magazines, including Hece Öykü, Kurgan, 14 Şubat Dünyanın Öyküsü, and Değirmen. These include some translations of Tamer’s stories made by the author of the present article. Some translations of his stories have also been published in selections of Arabic-language short stories, including the ‘Anthology of the Contemporary Arabic Short Story’, edited by Erdinç Doğru and published by the Meneviş publishing house in Ankara in 2002 under the title of one of Tamer’s stories, ‘Tigers on the Tenth Day’ (al-Numūr fī al-yawm al-‘āshir). In 2004 the Araştırma Yayınları publishing house – a company that usually publishes academic works in the field of theology – published a selection of Tamer’s stories under the same title (‘Tigers on the Tenth Day’) edited by Faruk Bozgöz. There are three other translations of this story published in various literary magazines. Two works by Zakaria Tamer, al-Ra‘d (The Thunder) and Rabī‘a fī al-Ramād (Spring in the Ashes), have also been translated recently and published by Demavend in Istanbul in 2014 and 2015 respectively in translations by Halim Öznurhan. It may be noted that the publishing houses that published these translations of Tamer’s works are almost like ‘local’ publishing houses and do not have extensive distribution networks. This has a negative effect on access to these translations for the Turkish reader. In terms of studies in Turkish devoted to Zakaria Tamer, there is a study entitled “The literary personality of the contemporary Syrian writer Zakaria Tamer”, published by the Nun publishing house in 2007, and edited by Ahmet Bostancı, who is an academic in a theological college. Translated by Paul Starkey BANIPAL 53 – SUMMER 2015 101

THE SHORT STORIES OF ZAKARIA TAMER

the world of the creative work, with its distinctive atmosphere. In this Tamer has succeeded impressively. He has chosen a style that creates tension and anger in the story, pulling the reader from the realm of everyday life to plunge him into an atmosphere of magic brimming with secrets. We encounter many symbols, similes and metaphors in the language he employs.

Tamer’s language is characterised by a poetic idiom that is mingled with a range of feelings and a variety of symbolic allusions, as well as a richness of imagination in his portrayals. Because the language of his stories relies on elements of inspiration it represents a halfway

ZAKARIA TAMER

Our Father Who Art in Heaven, and Our Killer Who Is on Earth

Policemen dressed in black beat up an old man with an unkempt beard. Their beating was long and painful. Believing that any moment he was going to breathe his last and, bidding this short earthly life farewell, he cried out angrily: “There is no god but God.” But the beating became more intense and savage, accompanied by a reminder that there are two gods: one in Heaven who is obeyed sometimes, and one on earth who is always obeyed.

Our Country

There is a country that has baffled historians. Every time one of its rulers becomes convinced that he will occupy his throne forever, he flies from his palace to his grave like the flight of eagles and hawks, and no one walks in his funeral procession save his envied killer.

TRANSLATED BY IBRAHIM MUHAWI Translated from Al-Mihmaz, Zakaria Tamer’s

Facebook page, http://on.fb.me/1G5jkgp

100 BANIPAL 53 – SUMMER 2015

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