| Summary: | In his novel Tarmī bi‑sharar (Throwing Sparks) for which he won the International Prize for Arab Fiction in 2010, Saudi novelist ‘Abduh Khāl holds an unflattering mirror to the Wahhabi kingdom. The novel is in effect a monologue by a torturer‑rapist acting on the orders of a mysterious Master of the Palace, set in the city of Jeddah, disfigured by cronyism. It is an allegory of the present regime and presents a country spoiled by its submission to absolutism. Two excerpts are commented in this article and underline the intertextual relationship between certain scenes from the novel and medieval literature.
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