A blue dog barking next to the bed

Mohammed Al-Mutrefi, a young Saudi writer, known for experimenting with new forms in storytelling and delving into areas that few Arab writers dare to explore. In his works, he re-examines major texts and their characters, holding a thin thread between respect and rebellion, giving the reader the opportunity to re-read the global literary heritage from a different perspective. In his latest work, he presents us with a small novella that features the character of Santiago, the protagonist of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, but this time away from the authority of its original author. We see Santiago liberated from the sea’s web, sitting on a barber’s chair in a suburb of Havana, ready to tell stories as if cutting hair. The work appears as a clever narrative game, where Al-Mutrefi allows the character to speak, argue, and live its own life. As the reader progresses through the text, they discover that they are not only reading about Santiago, but about a complex relationship between three parties: Hemingway himself, his protagonist, and Al-Mutrefi, who stands between them as both witness and participant. The dialogues sometimes take the form of duels, other times reconciliation, in a scene closer to a relay race where writers and characters take turns carrying the narrative baton. But what gives the work its special value is its poetic inclination. In touching moments, Hemingway appears weak, crying over his beloved Agnes, while Santiago babbles as if trying to fill the void left by the sea’s absence. These scenes draw the reader into a beautiful confusion: are we truly talking about Hemingway or about Al-Mutrefi himself, who has poured his soul into his American mentor? In the end, this novella is not just a rewriting, but an invitation to reflect on the meaning of characters slipping from their author’s grip, and the text becoming an independent living entity. I wonder, how will Santiago behave after he is liberated from the sea and his writer? Will the barber still be able to convince us with his stories as he once convinced a fisherman? And do we own our stories!! These are questions Al-Mutrefi leaves open, to push the reader to experience it themselves.