Cairo, (SANA)- Syrian-born Zakaria Tamer won Cairo 1st Short Story Forum Prize estimated at 100,000 Egyptian pounds, or 18171 USD.

Tamer has already won the 2009 Blue Metropolis Al Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Literary Prize in recognition of his extraordinary career as a writer.

The prize is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage to increase international recognition for Arab writers and literature.

Born in Damascus in 1931, Zakaria Tamer is one of the most widely-read short story writers, as well as a pre-eminent author of children's stories in Arabic.

His short stories are often reminiscent of folktales, renowned for their relative simplicity on the one hand and the complexity of their many potential references on the other. Most of his 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.

Tamer has also published children’s books and collections of his satirical newspaper columns.

His stories were translated into French, Russia, English, Dutch, Italian, Bulgarian, Spanish and Serbian Languages.