The Success of the "Unsuccessful" Tuma in Mediating between East and West: Rafik Schami's Erzähler der Nacht

In Rafik Schami's Erzähler der Nacht, Tuma, a Syrian immigrant to the United States, now retired and residing in Damascus, represents some of Schami's most important views on multicultural coexistence. Through this character, Schami conveys his vision of multiculturalism and voices his views on homeland, integration, and cultural identity. Tuma echoes Schami's perspective, as expressed in his interviews and in his other literary texts. In this text, Schami depicts the relations between different ethnic groups as challenging, while portraying inter-ethnic relations as successful on a personal level.

In Erzähler der Nacht, Schami employs a realistic narrative style that is inter-woven with fairy-tale elements to present his German readers with a picture of his homeland and its people. Dan Diner describes Schami as a narrator from Arabia who, as he takes up the Oriental tradition of the fairy tale as "Erzählung, Bericht, Rede im weitesten Sinne praktischer Sinngebung" as opposed to the German or European tradition, both employs and transforms that genre by granting it the reality of the here and now (64). Choosing Damascus as the setting, Schami provides the reader with an image of Syrian society in the late 1950s. Through a diverse group of friends he shows some of Syria's traditions, customs, and various views on social and political issues of the time. The group of friends consists of eight elderly men from different social and religious backgrounds. Iman Khalil argues convincingly that Schami aims to counteract the stereotype of the Arab in the West by depicting Arabs as a diverse people and not as a "collective entity," a term she borrows from Edward Said ("From the Margins to the Center"). She claims that Arab authors in Germany are faced with the task of challenging the centre's misconceptions about the Arab world and its people and asserts that Erzähler der Nacht provides an exemplary depiction of the diversified and unique character of the Syrian capital and its inhabitants (228). In another article, she observes that Schami is able to provide cultural information and depict this complex and differentiated picture of Syrian society by employing narrative strategies that are distinctive of Arabian oral tradition and characteristic of the Arabian Nights. These techniques, which allow for interruptions and improvisations, enable Schami to present the issues he raises in his novel from numerous perspectives ("Strategies" 217–24).

The novel's group of friends consists of Salim, who worked as a coachman; Mehdi, a former geography teacher; Junis, who owned a café; Tuma, who is a Christian immigrant to the United States; Musa, a hairdresser; Isam, a former convict who was imprisoned for twenty-four years for a murder he did not commit; Faris, a lawyer and former minister of finance; and Ali, a locksmith. These men meet night after night to listen to Salim, the storyteller. For years they would meet at Junis's café to enjoy quality coffee and smoke water pipes until Junis's son turned the café into a modern-style restaurant. Ever since, Salim has been welcoming them at his home. One day, a fairy appears and informs Salim that he has only a few words left to say and that he will lose his voice completely unless he receives seven unique gifts within three months. Ali suggests that Salim needs seven invitations in order to regain his voice. He invites him for dinner to his house, and Mehdi and the others follow his example. But Salim remains silent. For most of the three months, his friends try to help Salim in the best way they know. Junis takes him to different bars to taste the best wines, and Musa presents him with seven kinds of perfume. The minister secures him the pension he has been trying to claim for years, and finally Tuma travels with him for forty days. Um Chalil, a midwife, also tries to cure him with her natural remedies, but in vain. Likewise, the rites and substances used in the established religions do not have the...