Dr. Omnia Amin Writes and Translates Tayseer Nazmi In The Daily Jordan Times

الدكتورة أمنية أمين تكتب صفحة كاملة عن تيسير نظمي في الجوردان تايمز وتترجم بعض قصصه القصيرة

الدكتورة أمنية أمين

القاصة المصرية أمنية أمين

The daily Jordan Times (24/3/2005) :

The following article by Dr. Omnia Amin as it appeared.

WORD/  books . literature . ideas

LITERATURE/ Tayseer Nazmi looks for the unfamiliar and theunusual in his writing. As a result he is often misunderstood Dr Omnia Amin says.

Nazmi and the improbable burdens of life

Dr. Omnia Amin

 TAYSEER NAZMI HAS been writing since he was 20 years old .His early writings caused much controversy when they were published as he was always after the unfamiliar and the improbable ,which he always thought were never out of reach .A

lot of fantasy is involved in his creative writing, but Nazmy is more known as a critic in the literary and cultural field in the Arab World .

He has a piercing vision that responds to the effects of life from an angle that needs a special person with a sensitive perception to understand .More often than not he is misunderstood and misinterpreted as he avoids the familiar in search of different shores. Nazmi is a creative writer, a critic and a translator and has several books that are at the moment pending publication .The following short stories are taken from his collection entitled A Feast ,Silk and A Bird's Nest published by Al Karmel Press in 2004 and sponsored by the Greater Amman Municipality.

An idea, Two Drunkards and A Door (One short story in 5 parts,by Tayseer Nazmi . Translated by Dr. Omnia Amin)

At Night without the Night 

  The two drunkards, the owner of the house and his friend suddenly became aware. It was an hour after the people entered their house and they greeted themselves.It was after they went to the kitchen and ate what food remained from dinner: Lentils, bread, onions and garlic. After that they served themselves cheap arak and then they excused themselves politely as one of them took the new tape of Fairuz's songs and left. In this manner they both became aware of the question. After a long silence in which they thought , drank and listened to songs, one of them said to the other: " Will they come back to continue the night with us?" The other said: "I don't know". The first enquired: "Do you happen to know them? The second said: "No …do you?" The first said:" No, I've never seen them before." They continued to drink as if nothing had happened and they both wished the visitors had stayed for a while longer and they all sat and shared this long night .The door was still kept ajar, or may be open , but they were too occupied to think of that and too occupied to think of all they feared like for instance their bottle becoming empty or running out of cigarettes in the night. Drunkards are always like that and the night doesn't share anything with them .They are always like this only at night, without the night.

The Importance of Getting Married 

  With difficulty, and after many tiring enquiries and readings, I got the address of death. Using my wit that brought me a lot of trouble in life, I chose night-time to visit him and to gently knock at his door. I thought that such secrecy would allow me to achieve my final goal and catch him at home after he was through with the world of a tiresome day. But the first time I knocked his door I found him asleep. Maybe he was tired and fast asleep, so I closed the door and returned extremely depressed. The second time I went a bit early and found him at the doorstep about to enter his house .When he saw me he asked me to leave immediately and to give him three days. I found that it was somewhat too long and boring. Waiting weighed heavily on my heart after so much yearning. I was surprised to find after the three days passed that he was warning me and asking me to occupy myself with life. He even advised me to go ahead to the person I wanted to marry months ago and to give it a final try for I might succeed in getting married and setting down and I wouldn't  be in need  of him. Maybe he bet that I would forget the address, his address of course. I obeyed his orders and went looking my best and keeping patient, preparing myself to forget the idea. When I knocked on his door his wife answered me saying:" Excuse me I am his wife, Life. He asked me to tell you that you in particular have to forget him", and she shut the door.

 Sun

My problem is that I always wake up. I get up and start my day with what has become too familiar, repetitive and boring. I stay up till late , I get tired and desire sleep. The minute I enjoy sleep and quiet, I find myself waking up for no reason. Is it the sun for instance? Of course not, for this happens to me also in winter time when dark clouds hide the sun. It seems I have no solution for this problem. Every day I start my day I feel lazy to arrange my things. I hope that long sleep will rid me of them and of seeing them, but sleep evades. Therefore, I found no other way except to defeat the deceitful sleep by waking up till death.

The Idea

The two drunkards were amazed by the idea but they decided to prepare for it with enough amounts of cheap arak so they could drink to death. And I, the one who came up with the idea decided not to give sleep a chance so that he remains a sleep in my bed and hands me over to oppressive awakening. As for death, he was found dead in his bed for it seems that his marriage wasn't legal and his wife, Life, was pregnant. She told the two drunkards and me: "Give me time until I deliver my baby so that I can accompany you for I too have come to believe in the idea".

The Door

The door too was fed up with time and with the two drunkards and those entering and leaving. It got tired of being kept ajar and got fed up with the pregnant woman, her dead husband and of continuing to be a door. It left and went to the forest without knowing that the forest itself had left by force to the city and was turned into office furniture and doors closed on hatred, deceit, oppression, forgery, swindling, hypocrisy, bribes, stealing, robbery, lies, marital deceptions, political conspiracies and party meetings. Finally the door reached its country of origin only to find a huge void. It remained lonesome in the desert .No doubt that over there it forgot the idea without pretending to. After a long time in the desert after it lay down, slept without a forest, without a home, without locks and without hands to close it and open it, without those entering and those exiting, it no longer was a door.

 Translated by Dr. Omnia Amin