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. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith as a locksmith in a factory in the Al-Basha district of Damascus. 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]". 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.

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

1960-1981

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.

1980s onwards

Interest in Tamer’s works did not lessen after his immigration to Great Britain . In the year 2000 the Syrian literary journal al-Mawqif al-adab? published five articles on Zakaria Tamer's fiction in a special issue. Among them there is a paper by Najm Abd All?h K?im 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, N?diy? Kh?st, analyses Nid? N? in particular, and notes the psychological paradox underlying the bizarre situations depicted in his stories.

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.

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 theme, as seen in such stories as the "The Stale Loaf" and the "Room with Two Beds", is 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 these 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 unfulfillment. 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 attention.

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.

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

Short story collections

• The Neighing of the White Steed(1960) ???? ?????? ??????
• Spring In The Ashes, (1963) ???? ?? ??????
• The Thunder, (1970) ?????
• Damascus Fire, (1973) ???? ???????
• Tigers on the Tenth Day, (1978) ?????? ?? ????? ??????
• Noah's Summons, (1994),???? ???
• We Shall Laugh, (1998) ?????
• IF!, (1998) ??!
• Sour Grapes, (2000) ??????
• Breaking Knees, (2002) ????? ???
• The Hedgehog, (2005) ??????

Collections of satirical articles

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

Other Collections

• Why the River Fell Silent, (1973) ????? ??? ?????
• The Flower Spoke to the Bird, (1978) ???? ?????? ???????

In Translation

• Breaking Knees, (2008), translated by Ibrahim Muhawi (Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing)

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

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

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)

Selected studies

• Damascene Shahrazad: The Images of Women in Zakariyya Tamir’s Short Stories Source: Hawwa 4, no. 1 (2006)
• Bayan Rayhanova. Mythological and Folkloric Motifs in Syrian Prose: The Short Stories of Zakariyya Tamir
• Bulletin of the Israeli Oriental society - ??????? ???????? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ?? ????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ????? ???? .
• Bulletin of the Israeli Oriental society -???? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????
• Tishreen University Journal for Studies and Scientific Research- Arts and Humanities Science Series Vol (26) No (1) 2004 - ?????? ??????? ?? ??? ????? ????
• Individuation and Literature: Zakariyya. Tamir and his Café Man’ (Emma Westney), Oxford University (1996)
• Alon Fragman, Ben Gurion University: “When the Birds Leave Their Cage: Zakariyya Tamir’s Writing in Exile”
• Historical and literary figures in the works of Zakariyy? T?mirs, (Historische und literarische Figuren im Werk Zakariyy? T?mirs by Peter Dové), Universität Bern (2003)