old woman

Author's name: Daniel Kharms

The unlucky Russian writer Daniil Kharms, who enjoyed limited fame among his peers in the Leningrad section of the Soviet Union, was unable to officially publish any of his adult works, except for two poems, due to the dictates of the then-dominant Soviet Writers' Union. He and his friend and only collaborator, Alexander Vvedensky (1900-1941), formed the Association of Oberio (Experimental Realist Art) Writers. Kharms turned to writing for children, producing approximately 11 diverse books for them, including "The Hedgehog and Siksin" through the publishing house known as "Marshal Academy." Several of these children's tales sparked widespread controversy at the time, leading to accusations of promoting socialism and spreading distorted and unsafe ideas for children, hostile to the Soviet Union, and full of symbolism and allusions. Kharms tried to exonerate himself by feigning madness. In August 1941, he was arrested on charges of opposing the communist regime. As a hidden and hostile textual propaganda passed behind the story (a man went out to buy tobacco and disappeared). He was thrown into the psychiatric clinic of the Leningrad prison during the first harshest winter of the German siege. On February 2, 1942, forgotten in his wing, he died of starvation. Kharms cannot be classified as a novelist or a traditional storyteller, but rather a writer who does not seek to force you to understand what he wants. Behind the fabric of his characters, he hides a thousand stories and tales. He is a man with a unique literary identity in the school of the absurd. Thirty years after it was banned, Kharms's works were able to appear with the same brilliance and absurdity that fascinated him. From the gate of the Khan's house, we present him to Arabic readers in the story (The Old Woman), whom Kharms met by chance on the street, carrying a clock without hands.