Tigers on the Tenth Day and Other Stories Book

Satirical stories of Syria and the Arab world look at the abuse of power by men over women, the rich over the poor, and the strong over the weak. The short, tightly told title story of this collection, Tigers on the Tenth Day, is an allegory that recounts with control how even the strongest of us can be gradually broken and tamed by those who wield the whip of power. Most of Zakaria Tamer's 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. The political and social problems of his own country, Syria, and of the contemporary Arab world, are reflected in the stories and sketches in the sharply satirical style typical of his writing. For his Western readers, often puzzled by the complexities of the Middle East, Zakaria Tamer's stories, in the words of his translator, "provide a revealing peep behind the scenes" in this first volume of his work in the English language.