The winner of this year's International Prize for Arabic Fiction, announced yesterday, is the Saudi writer, Abdo Khal (pictured above). 

His book, known in English as "Throwing Sparks as Big as Castles", is the story of a young man who leaves his family in a poor community in Jeddah to work as a servant for a rich businessman living in a palace.

The citation describes it as a painfully satirical novel, depicting "the destructive impact that power and limitless wealth has on life and the environment":

"It captures the seductive powers of the palace and tells the agonising story of those who have become enslaved by it, drawn by its promise of glamour. Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles exposes the inner world of the palace and of those who have chosen to become its puppets, from whom it has stolen everything."

Reuters quotes Taleb Alrefai, the Kuwaiti chair of the judges, as saying: "The winning novel is a brilliant exploration of the relationship between the individual and the state ... Through the eyes of its two-dimensional protagonist, the book gives the reader a taste of the horrifying reality of the excessive world of the palace."

Discussing the shortlist on The Arabophile blog, Youssef Rakhawrote: 

"The novel is set in a destitute Jeddah neighbourhood and in the palace that has recently been built next door. The owner of the palace is a well-connected, wealthy and powerful man, about whose origins little is known. The owner, a ruthless and sadistic tycoon, seizes and tortures those who have crossed him; he enlists the narrator – a child of the neighbourhood notorious as a homosexual and a bully – to sexually abuse his victims, who are videotaped as they suffer.

"But the narrator, in Khal’s account, is not just an unthinking instrument in the hands of power: he is a participant in the violence, an agent of political oppression, but also a victim of economic dispossession. Khal’s depiction of the narrator’s extended family and neighbours – particularly his bravely disapproving aunt, from whose eyes the sparks of the title emanate – reflects an entire society caught up in the horror of inequality and the absurdity of power."

By Saudi standards, this is heady stuff and, as one commentposted on the internet says, "I don't think that's fiction, I think that's fact."

The book's title is lifted from a description of hell in the Qur'an (77:32 – al-Mursalat): "Innaha tarmi bi sharar ka al-qasr".

إِنَّهَا تَرْمِي بِشَرَرٍ كَالْقَصْرِ

In the opening pages of the novel, Khal compares two parts of Jeddah in the midst of a real estate boom. Nabil Shawkat, writing in The National, said:

"He refers to the best part as heaven and the worst part as hell, then he races into a graphic account of sex, repression, love and despair. One might expect Khal to run out of breath after a few chapters of trauma-inducing scenes, but he keeps the madness going at relentless pace, with characters cheating and being cheated, torturing and being tortured, exacting revenge and becoming objects of revenge. Khal has written a thriller from beginning to end, and his brand of writing is quite unusual for this part of the world."

The Arabist blog has a short extract in English.

Abdo Khal was born in al-Majanah, southern Saudi Arabia, in 1962 and studied political science at King Abd Al-Aziz University in Jeddah. His previous works include A Dialogue at the Gates of the Earth, There's Nothing to be Happy About, and Cities Eating the Grass. 

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction – sometimes known as "the Arab Booker" – was established three years ago. Details of the other shortlisted authors are here.