Personal Response

             Unfamiliar of the book “The Kite Runner” I did not know what to expect reading the story. I had heard from many readers what they thought of the book and there was not one negative comment to come from it. With that I decided it was something I should potentially read. With this in mind, I am extremely happy with my novel choice. At no point in the story was it slow and boring. Myself as the reader came to an understanding of how corrupt a country can be as well as experiencing first hand the struggles on being an immigrant from your homeland. This combing created a very appealing and interesting story. The connection you feel to both of the main characters is unmatched by any other novels or stories I have read. Overall, this was a great choice for me and I recommend it to everyone! 

What the title “The Kite Runner” represents

         The title refers to the main characters Amir and Hassan and the event that will in effect change both of their lives. The kite flying in the sky refers to the kite flying competition that Amir wins with the aid of Hassan. Besides the references to these characters, the title invokes the freedom that a kite has which is made possible through control from the spool attached to the kite. The fact that the kite flying takes two people to be successful, points out that freedom is possible in the case in which people can get along together and come to an agreement. When you put that into perspective, war itself can be avoided by resolving issues typically between two sides, alike how we see that in the story through the eyes of the two main characters. If the problems are left unresolved then inhumane acts are without a doubt inevitable. Therefore naming the novel “The Kite Runner”, harmonizes all of these aspects.

Dramatic Irony

Rape in an Islamic country- In a country such as Afghanistan, rape is not recognized. The act of raping is not something Islamic countries are not interpreted in the same way North America or Europe for example sees it. More less the act of rape happens and if no one has actually proof or sees it nothing will be done. In Afghanistan is rape has taken place and a women is raped they will be stoned. In the case of the Kite Runner where two boys are involved, typically it would mean that they are both to be executed.   

Superiority- Amir constantly at the beginning of the story thinks he is “above” his friend Hassan on several occasions. Time passes and Amir comes to reality and realizes he is on the same level if not lower.

An example of this would be when Hassan was being raped and Amir did nothing to help his friend. If Amir was that manly figure that was above everyone, he would have gone right over to help his friend. Instead Amir runs off trying to forget he ever saw the event take place. The ironic part of the situation is that if it was Hassan in Amir’s position, without hesitation he would go and do the best he could to help. Hassan therefore displays the characteristics that would make him in fact ‘’higher” than Amir. 

Internal/External Conflict

           The internal conflicts revolve around Amir. Amir feels unspeakable guilt towards Hassan when he was raped. Amir also struggled to get a true sense of love from his father, as he always felt he was not a priority and felt lost and left out from his life almost. The great amount of pride and manly hood Hassan has made Amir realize that he never stands up for himself which he had difficulties coping with. When Hassan is gone, Amir feels extremely lonely because his father is not a typical father figure and since Hassan was his childhood friend that was with him through all the tough times.

As far as the external conflicts in the Kite Runner is indefinitely betrayal, and sacrifice that each character has to come face to face with physically, mentally and emotionally. Expiation is also a notable external conflict with relation to the sin that Amir and Hassan have partaken in. 

Symbolism

Kite Running

Kite Running in the story symbolizes a form of battle and competition in which you cannot loose. Kabul’s interpretation of kite flying is that it’s simply going to war. Amir and Hassan’s friendship is shown through the teamwork required to build a successful kite. The two parts of kite running which are controlling the kite and the running after the cut down kite are perfect representations of distinction between the two boys. Knowing that the kite flying is less desirable but more honorable. The running s the more ideal job but its less respected in as sense. Amir is the kite flyer in the story when Hassan is the runner. The audience that was spectating the event would scream at Amir to “cut him, cut him” insinuating that he needs to win. Amir described the screaming to be similar to Gladiators being screamed at by the Romans to “kill”. By the end of the competition the two boys are victorious. Amir has become a “man” according to his father, but not long after he has lost his manhood by not taking on the male responsibility to help a dear friend when he was in need.

The Pomegranate Tree

The tree is a direct representation of the strong bond Amir and Hassan share. Their names are carved into the tree representing something lasting a “lifetime”. When they are sitting under the tree Amir whips a pomegranate at Hassan hoping that he would fight back. Hassan does not respond in such a way in fact he smashes a pomegranate against his own forehead. It shows that he again is making a sacrifice for Amir. This basically signifies the extent of their relationship because Amir cannot comprehend the reason why Hassan always sacrifices himself for Amir. Amir’s overall guilt ends the friendship.

Book Notes #1

Setting: 


The Kite Runner is initially situated in San Francisco however the book flashes back to Kabul, Afghanistan. This is where Amir, the main character and narrator of the story grew up and this is where we learn about Amir’s childhood experiences. Throughout his experiences it’s learned that is what shaped him to be who he is today. Amir’s go way back to the 1960’s as a youth and then to where he is a teenager. Amir and his father around the 60’s is where the Soviet invasion took place thus forcing them to immigrate into the United States. In Afghanistan’s they were considered to be quite well off and with the invasion they had to leave all their possessions and starting life over in San Francisco was difficult. The time frame of the story goes through three times frames; childhood, teenage, and adulthood.

Characters:

Amir- The main character of the story but also the narrator. His age in the story bounces as the story starts when Amir is a child and we see him go through his teenage year as well as his adulthood. Amir matures quickly as he has gone through a lot of horrible and terrifying things. After he “allowed” his friend Hassan to be raped, Amir becomes very quiet and wants little to do with the outside world. On the contrary, Amir feels a sense of relentless and guilt as hes realizes allowing that specific event to take place his selfishness costs him happiness.

Hassan- A loyal and yet brother like friend to Amir. He is a servant to Baba and Amir, and he is responsible for things such as reading stories to Amir for school, getting groceries and essentially running the household. Hassan early in the story gets raped and to witness it was Amir yet he did nothing to help. Throughout that experience surprisingly Hassan remains to be a loyal friend.

Baba- The oldest male figure of the story being Amir’s father. Baba is a determined man but he also is independent which has its negative affects on Amir. Being the one to make the call to leave home was very stressful on Baba being a well respected citizen of the community and also wealthy. The move to San Francisco resulted in Baba leaving his wealthy lifestyle to a Gas station tenant. Through the life changing experiences Baba had to take his son Amir through, the relationship between them became much stronger.

Conflicts (Initial) - The Kite Runner has several conflicts throughout. The main external conflict in the story is betrayal, and sacrifice. Each character must come face to face with the conflict physically, mentally, and emotionally. Amir’s point of betrayal was when Hassan needed him the most and he just sat back in shock not knowing what to do. This was the point in which Hassan was getting raped and Amir didn’t want to get hurt therefore he decided to observe the torture taking place rather then trying to help it. Amir’s father Baba also betrayed his closest friend as a child Ali, when he slept with his wife.

Theme:

Guilt- Amir feels an extreme level of guilt towards Hassan. During the time Hassan was being raped rather then Amir trying to help Hassan he stay back a distance and simply views the inhumane act taking place. During that point in the story Amir tells us how he wants to help his friend but he does not want to get hurt. In this case wouldn’t you do anything you could? Hassan is a best friend to Amir…

Lying- Baba has fallen under the theme of lying because of what he hides from Hassan and Amir. Amir grows up believing that the servant in the house and best friend of his is just someone Baba hired. When in actuality, Hassan is Amir’s half brother. However, Baba fails to mention the fact.

Honor- Baba’s secret that is hidden from Amir and Hassan about them being half brothers. Baba knows that they are related but does not want anyone to know this because he is afraid of what people will think of him. Society might think less of him because it is suggesting that a couple has possibly not been faithful to each other and/or Baba had a child with another woman. This is a significant issue back in the 60’s as well as now and it is quite possible his reputation could slide.

Active Reading:

Kites flying (metaphor) – Kite flying is an activity in which the opponents objective is to eliminate the other player and take out the kites in the sky. The war in Afghanistan during that time period can be metaphorically seen because kite flying involves a common purpose and conflict as well as the war.

Personal Analysis- Personally I find the story to be quite interesting and I like the way it is written. Initially It starts with the main characters being situated in San Francisco after the emigration from Afghanistan. Soon after the story has a flashback to their life in their homeland. I certainly find this is an effective way to keep the reader interested because you are always wondering how everything ties together. The story has its dull points but it seems that there is always something like a “twist” that keeps my interest to read the next chapter. Without a doubt if someone was to ask if I recommend reading this novel I would say that it would be an excellent choice.   

Critical Article Summaries

Article:

“Kite Catches and Flies High”

Jim Bartley, “Kite Catches and Flies High.” Globe & Mail (Toronto) (28 June 2003)

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Summary :

            The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini has such expression in his dialect. At the beginning it becomes apparent that the theme of love for one another is present.  From living the dream in San Francisco, California to the nightmare in Kabul, Afghanistan, the reader is fulfilled with a sense of tenderness and terror. The summative portion of the story does not achieve the same degree of emotional experience between childhood friends that is given by comprehending the full story. Characters Amir and Hassan from the start have been affecting largely by the worlds divisions. The story of Amir’s tragic childhood in two continents for more than two decades has the ability to allow the story to be suspenseful and gripping.

Article:

Noor, Ronny. “Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner.  World Literature Today

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Summary:

     The Kite Runner Creates a vivid picture of the alliance of the Taliban as well as the Russian enormity. The novel is a story filled with redemption and sins as the son is trying to redeem his father’s sin. Afghanistan’s conflict is only daintily brushes upon as the reader only really acquires a very simplistic vision and simple picture of it. Khaled fails to mention several of the organizations that are involved in the Afghan conflict specifically because it is not a main focus but simply as a backdrop for the story. Khaled also utters that the present leader of Afganistan, Hamid Karzai, will get Afhanistan back on its “feet” to say. Unfortunately this is not the case for Hamid as his power does not come across as very threatening as farmers are producing significantly larger quantities of opium the ever before for survival. Also it is spoken that the occupying forces, according to human-rights groups, that the leader is routinely violating and injuring innocent Afghans. This theme of conflict is quite noticeable as it is depicted throughout the story.

Article:

“An Old, Familiar Face: Writer Khaled Hosseini, Lifting the Veil on Afghanistan” Washington Post May 28, 2007

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Summary:

Khaled Hosseini and The Kite Runner were considered to be underrated. When the critic chose the title “Lifting the veil on Afghanistan” it is referring to the author’s personal experiences and events in his life which were at one time hidden or not shown. Khaled during the time he was writing this story he was thinking that he would potentially not publish or finish the story because at the present time Afghanistan was seen as a fearful and remorseful country. This was also around the time of the 911 attack involving the Twin Towers in New York. His wife in fact was the one who convinced him to continue to write the story. The continuance of this story was a risky battle because of the relation with Afghanis and the actions of some individuals from their home country.  The end result of Khaled Hosseini’s novel was that it sold over 4 millions copies world-wide and being published in 34 countries. Khaled made mention saying, “there were days when I couldn't pay people to read that novel." However this is no longer the case anymore because this story is a known success.

Survey of Authors & Secondary Sources

Survey of Authors & Secondary Sources

Author: Khaled Hosseini         Title: The Kite Runner

What made you interested in this author?

Author Khaled Hosseini captured my interest because of his outstanding success and attention his writing has acquired. In 2003 Hosseini debut his latest accomplishment, “The Kite Runner.” This piece of literature was personally my second novel I have read that was written by Hosseini. Previously I had read his novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” A Thousand Splendid Suns was a great story and I enjoyed Hosseini’s style of writing quite a bit which also helped into making a decision to read his other pieces of literature.

Brief background on the author.

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965 was Khaled Hosseini. During the year of his life after relocating several times he graduated with several degrees one being in medicine. In 2001, during his practice in medicine he began to write his first piece of literature. 2003 The Kite Runner was published and it became an international best seller, being published in 48 countries. A few years later after his predecessor The Kite Runner, along came A Thousand Splendid Suns in 2007. Hosseini recently has been working to provide humanitarian assistance in his homeland of Afghanistan. Hosseini’s creation on the “Khaled Hosseini Foundation was inspired by his excursion to Afghanistan in 2007. Currently his residence is situated in northern California.

Other Published works and genres.

Khaled Hosseini has only two publications to date being “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” In terms of genre, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are both classified as historical fiction literature. These stories specifically take place in a particular time period in the past with fictional characters. The two stories alike are depicted in real-life locations.

Information on particular places, time periods, events of influence or interest to your author.

Khaled Hosseini as an author upon writing the story The Kite Runner had many personal connections to the story. When writing this story he added several aspects of his personal life to the plot. Khaled did not contrive the story in his mind as it essentially was bits and pieces of his life when he was growing up in Kabul. While it is not an autobiography the story revolves around his past. Khlaed relied on many personal memories to create the story. The time period in which his story was written in was around the time Khaled was born. Where Khaled and Amir grew up, the passion for flying and immigration into a foreign country are some of the experiences that were very similar to Amir’s and his fathers.

Themes favored by the author.

Khaled Hosseini is a stupendous author with experiences and morale’s that anyone can relate to one way or another. Khaled presents many themes to the reader for the duration of the novel. The Kite Runner exceptionally portrays the lifestyle and culture of the Afghan people in the story but also in real life. It is striking to see the similarities in his writing as it pertains to a real life situation.

Critic Jim Bartley said “A bullied Afghani boy weeps in a darkened cinema, and is comforted by his best friend--and master--well, I was sold, and hoped only that the book would continue to hold me in the same embrace.” Globe & Mail (Toronto) (28 June 2003). The theme of friendship and loyalty is expressed initially at the beginning of the story and as the story moves forward these themes become less apparent in the sense that the plot thickens and all of the sudden cause and effect plays a larger role in the story as betrayal becomes apparent.

Other authors compared to…

Khaled Hosseini and Kiran Desai are both unique authors and their stories they write about have a similar feel and plot to them. Khaled and Kiran are comparable in the sense that they both have the same premise behind their stories. The two of them write about characters that are immigrants that have had a difficult upbringing coming from a country of conflict and terror. The stories “The Kite Runner” and “The Inheritance of Loss” comprise of a common political conflict and a difference of ethnicities and beliefs.

Secondary Sources

"Kite Catches and Flies High"

Critic: Jim Bartley

Source: Globe & Mail (Toronto) (28 June 2003): D3.

[(review date 28 June 2003) In the following review, Bartley praises Hosseini's expressiveness in The Kite Runner.]

There has been a next-big-thing buzz around this novel [The Kite Runner] for months now. Born and raised in Kabul, San Francisco writer Khaled Hosseini reportedly holds the distinction of being the first Afghani to produce a novel of his homeland in English.

A word about that English: What's most conspicuous on almost every page of this debut is not language, but the shimmer of life. There is no display in Hosseini's writing, only expression--a lesson for all budding novelists. By page seven, as a bullied Afghani boy weeps in a darkened cinema, and is comforted by his best friend--and master--well, I was sold, and hoped only that the book would continue to hold me in the same embrace.

And embrace it does--or better said, encompass. Hosseini does tenderness and terror, California dream and Kabul nightmare with equal aplomb. His carefully built structure of ripping yarn and ethical parable teeters only with an occasional lingering on sentiment, and a few too-neat tie-offs of trailing plot strands.

In San Francisco one summer day, a young husband and writer, Amir, receives a phone call from his father's old Afghani business partner, now in exile in Pakistan. "I knew it wasn't Rahim Khan on the line. It was my past of unatoned sins." Afterward, Amir goes for a walk in Golden Gate Park and sees kites dancing in the air. "Hassan's voice whispered in my head: 'For you, a thousand times over.'"

Hassan is the kite runner of the book's title and a former servant to the young Amir, raised in an affluent suburb of Kabul. As a child, Amir became inseparable from the servant boy whose family lived in a mud hut at the back of the garden. "It was there, in that little shack, that Hassan was born in the winter of 1964, just one year after my mother died giving birth to me."

With keen memory for the raw emotions of childhood, Hosseini introduces us to a culture where a first cousin is a natural choice for a spouse, where an adulterous wife is a greater tragedy than a dead one, and where a horseman trampled to death at a sporting event is simply an ordinary sacrifice to the spectacle. Young Amir earns only speechless disgust from his father, his "Baba", for crying all the way home after witnessing such a death at the local stadium. It's Rahim Khan, Baba's business partner, whose affection for the boy becomes the more valued paternal influence.

At the climax of an annual ritual of battling kites, Amir's win is clinched by Hassan's devotion to him as his kite runner--a boy charged with tracking and intercepting the opponent's damaged kite as it drifts over the city and finally to earth. Hassan succeeds in gaining the prize and, as Amir catches up with him, he finds his friend cornered in an alley by neighbourhood bullies. Quaking with shame and fear, Amir hides and does nothing while Hassan is held face down and the ringleader prepares to rape him. Before he can witness the assault, Amir bolts. "I ran because I ran because I was a coward ... I actually aspired to cowardice."

After the incident, Hassan shies from contact with Amir, making sure he is out of sight each morning after preparing Amir's breakfast and laying out his ironed clothes. Amir colludes in the dance of avoidance, meanwhile, stewing in his guilt. Desperate to remove the source of pain, he plants some of his birthday cash under Hassan's mattress, then reports it missing to Baba. The lie succeeds in driving Hassan and Ali from their lives.

This outline doesn't come close to capturing the book's emotional parsing of the love that's possible between childhood friends. These boys' hearts are already fatally infected by the world's divisions. Hassan can't help but love and serve; Amir can't help but love and use, and his suppressed chafing at the inequity breeds guilt that plays out as abuse--initially petty, finally unconscionable. Callow heartbreak is sustained here through paragraphs and whole pages.

By 1981, the Soviets have occupied Kabul and every acquaintance has become a "comrade," coming in two varieties: "those who eavesdropped and those who didn't. A casual remark to the tailor while getting fitted might land you in the dungeons of Poleh-charkhi."

The tale of fractured childhood grows to include two continents and more than two decades of Afghan turmoil. The shocks and suspense are frequently gripping; meanwhile, Hosseini deftly manages his intimate narrative of love, betrayal and reconciliation. A few plot elements are buttoned down too explicitly (and implausibly) for the sake of an easy tug on the heartstrings. Some readers will revel in this; others may wish their imaginations had been given more credit. Still, Hosseini's catharsis arrives with true force, and a gratifying acknowledgment of life's reluctance to offer storybook endings.
Biographical/Critical Introduction to Khaled Hosseini

Source: Jim Bartley, "Kite Catches and Flies High." Globe & Mail (Toronto)(28 June 2003): D3.

Gale Database: Contemporary Literary Criticism

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Full Text :

COPYRIGHT 2004 University of Oklahoma

Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner. New York. Riverhead. 2003. vii + 324 pages, $24.95. ISBN 1-57322-245-3

THE KITE RUNNER is Khaled Hosseini's best-selling first novel. It is the very first novel in English by an Afghan, in which a thirty-eight-year-old writer named Amir recounts the odyssey of his life from Kabul to San Francisco via Peshwar, Pakistan. The protagonist was born into a wealthy family in Kabul. Raised by his father, his mother having passed away during his birth, Amir lives a relatively happy life until the Soviet tanks roll into Afghanistan. Then he and his father flee to Pakistan and end up in America. In the United States, his father becomes a gas-station manager, selling junk on weekends with his son at the San Jose flea market. Amir meets Soraya, the daughter of a former Afghan general, and soon ties the knot with her.

For fifteen years the young couple tries in vain to have children. Then Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan, a friend and former business partner of his now-deceased father. Amir flies to Peshwar to meet with him. Rahim Khan reveals that Hassan, Amir's childhood friend, the presumed son of the family servant All, was in reality Amir's half-brother, his father's illegitimate son with Ali's wife. Hassan and his wife were killed by the Taliban. Rahim Khan wants Amir to go to Kabul and bring Hassan's son to Peshwar. After much hesitation, Amir goes to Kabul and frees his nephew from the clutches of an unscropolous child molester. Later he brings the child to America for adoption.

This lucidly written and often touching novel gives a vivid picture of not only the Russian atrocities but also those of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. It is rightly a "soaring debut," as the Boston Globe claims, but only if we consider it a novel of sin and redemption, a son trying to redeem his father's sin. As far as the Afghan conflict is concerned, we get a selective, simplistic, even simple-minded picture. Hosseini tells us, for example, that "Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis" were behind the Taliban. He does not mention the CIA or Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor to President Carter, "whose stated aim," according to Pankaj Mishra in the spring 2002 issue of Granta, "was to 'sow shit in the Soviet backyard.'"

Hosseni also intimates that the current leader handpicked by foreign powers, Hamid Karzai--whose "caracul hat and green chapan became famous"--will put Afghanistan back in order. Unfortunately, that is all Karzai is famous for--his fashion, Hollywood style. His government does not control all of Afghanistan, which is torn between warlords as in the feudal days. Farmers are producing more opium than ever before for survival. And the occupying forces, according to human-rights groups, are routinely trampling on innocent Afghans. There is no Hollywood-style solution to such grave problems of a nation steeped in the Middle Ages, is there?

Ronny Noor

University of Texas, Brownsville

Named Works: The Kite Runner (Book) Book reviews 

Source Citation

Noor, Ronny. "Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner." World Literature Today 78.3-4 (2004): 148. General OneFile. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.

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World Literature Today 78.3-4 (Sept-Dec 2004)

Article #3

"An Old, Familiar Face: Writer Khaled Hosseini, Lifting the Veil on Afghanistan"

Critics: Khaled Hosseini and Tamara Jones

Source: Washington Post (28 May 2007): C1.

"An Old, Familiar Face: Writer Khaled Hosseini, Lifting the Veil on Afghanistan",


[(interview date 28 May 2007) In the following interview, Hosseini describes his 2003 visit to war-torn Afghanistan.]

Khaled Hosseini is starving. The fussy little frizzle of lettuce on his plate isn't what he hoped for, not the hearty luncheon salad he had clearly asked for, yet the wildly acclaimed author of The Kite Runner can't bring himself to send it back, make a scene or simply order more food. He eats without complaint, takes only one roll from the basket, thanks the waiter warmly and accepts his fate with the same inscrutable Afghan resignation that makes the characters in his new novel maddening or heroic--and often both.

"Zendagi migzara" is how the 42-year-old Californian would put it in his native Farsi. "Life goes on."

For Hosseini, life doesn't go forward so much as backward, as he continues to explore the psyche of the country he left as a little boy, avoiding three decades of war and mayhem by being the "nauseatingly fortunate" son of a diplomat who was already posted to Paris when the turmoil began. He did not escape Afghanistan so much as abandon it, and he returns there again in A Thousand Splendid Suns to reconcile his childhood's watercolor memories with reality's bloody tableau.

Just before The Kite Runner's release in 2003, Hosseini returned to Afghanistan for the first time. Those two weeks would provide much of the material for A Thousand Splendid Suns, with Hosseini on a novelist's deeply personal fact-finding mission.

"To my knowledge, everything I wrote was based on something I saw or heard," Hosseini says. The dismal conditions at a Kabul hospital, for example, came straight from Hosseini's own visit to a surgical ward, where he encountered a family whose small son was having an operation.

"The neurosurgeon came out, and he has this handful of prescriptions he's trying to give the father. He's telling him, 'We don't have serum'--which is what you use for IVs--'we don't have calcium, we don't have antibiotics.'" Hosseini, who spent a few ambivalent years practicing medicine before writing his first novel, immediately understood what the illiterate villager did not: The only chance the child had of getting any of the medicines he needed was if his family found them for him. Hosseini took the prescriptions himself and embarked on a scavenger hunt across the city, from pharmacy to pharmacy, until all were filled.

Likewise, the horror stories he heard about the Soviet invasion, mujaheddin, Taliban rule and all manner of war atrocities made their way into the novel centering around the lives of two Afghan women, Laila and Mariam.

"I think all writers are unapologizing thieves," Hosseini admits with the same self-effacing humor that had charmed the audience at a Smithsonian lecture the night before. He doesn't boast about the 4 million copies of The Kite Runnerpublished in 34 countries, recounting, instead, how "there were days when I couldn't pay people to read that novel."

"I went to an appearance at one bookstore, and the person who organized it wasn't there," Hosseini recalls. He was greeted by a kid with purple hair who didn't know who he was. Hosseini explained that he was the guest author, and soon found himself facing "like, 80 empty chairs and three people. One was a little old lady who must have been 92, and the other was a couple in their 60s." Hosseini suggested they all save face, and offered to just sign books and chat. The trio insisted on the promised reading. Hosseini obliged.

"Then, as I'm reading, I hear this click-click-click noise, and the little old lady is making her way past the podium on her walker."

Now, launching an ambitious seven-week publicity tour across the country for A Thousand Splendid Suns, with a six-nation European swing planned for the fall, Hosseini seems safely past such indignities, his following so assured that the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees recently named him a special envoy. Hosseini traveled to Chad earlier this year to visit two teeming refugee camps. And, as had been the case in Afghanistan, he found himself drawn again most deeply into the plight of women.

"There's a tremendous shortage of funds for the victims of Darfur," Hosseini says. "One of the biggest problems at the camps is when the women go out to gather firewood to cook, and they get attacked and raped." A German inventor has built a mini-oven that requires only 20 percent of the current amount of wood, Hosseini notes, and "it only costs around $70." But there aren't funds to buy enough of them, he adds, and women and girls end up brutally beaten and dead as a result. It's a fate that can be changed, the novelist points out.

Hosseini hasn't launched another novel yet, and isn't sure where his next book might take him, but the plight of refugees is clearly a tragedy that has stirred something deep within. He hopes to arrange a trip to Pakistan's volatile refugee camps--home to thousands of displaced Afghans--during his U.N. stint.

"I'm interested in writing about characters who suffer terrible things to survive," he says. He's equally interested in antagonists who do horrible things, then try to atone in ways that are as flawed as their characters. It's not the poetry of epic anguish that Hosseini taps into, but the passion.

"I have always known that my prose is limited," he says mildly. "My writing is spare, direct. My natural knack is for telling a story."

The eldest of four brothers and one sister, Hosseini spent only eight years of his early childhood in Afghanistan, his memories a vivid montage of family picnics, flying kites and Kabul as a peaceful, vibrant city. By the time the Hosseinis became political asylum-seekers in the United States, Khaled was 15 and Afghanistan was a distant, troubled land. His sense of duality was so complete by the time he was in medical school that he was stunned when a classmate referred to the desks where he sat with some Iranian friends as "the terrorist corner."

"And that was 1989, 1990!" he adds.

Hosseini had always harbored dreams of writing, from the plays he cajoled his younger brothers and cousins into performing as a child to the short stories he wrote as an adult. But he was a good student, interested in science as well as literature, and medicine seemed like a more reliable livelihood. He worked onThe Kite Runner early each morning before reporting to work as a primary-care doctor for a large HMO in the Bay Area. "In primary care, you hardly ever save a life," he observes. "The rewards are smaller and more incremental." Medicine was like an arranged marriage he grew fond of; writing was the grand romance between high school sweethearts.

He is routinely asked about the perceived overlap between his two careers, the similarities between writing and medicine. He dutifully replies that they're alike, how both require people skills. Challenge him over a plate of lettuce, though, and he quickly admits that this is a lie. "I answer that way because people expect it." In fact, "writing was always kind of a diversion from medicine." The phenomenal success of The Kite Runner made clear that Hosseini's fate was to explore life's scars, not quickly suture the surface wounds.

When the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, happened, Hosseini was two-thirds through writing The Kite Runner. He remembers telling Roya, his Bethesda-born wife, "You know, I don't want to finish this novel. The Afghans are the bad guys now." Why would any American readers feel any empathy now for this tortured country or its people? Roya, a lawyer, "started making her case," he recalls, and ultimately convinced him that his book "could maybe show a different face of Afghanistan."

That face, in his new novel, is mostly hidden behind the stifling veils of the burqa, which both Laila and Mariam are forced to wear by Rasheed, the abusive husband they share. Hosseini's portrayal of the women gradually coming to not only accept but appreciate the confining garment is already stirring the most criticism of the book, the author acknowledges.

At the Smithsonian, Hosseini took care to deflect any such brickbats before they started flying, insisting that, "personally, I find the idea of making a woman faceless reprehensible. I wish every single woman in Afghanistan could lift the burqa and walk the streets freely."

But the choice should also be theirs to wear it, he told the murmuring crowd.

"Women wore the burqa in Afghanistan for centuries before the Taliban," he went on. "It's not quite the concern for women in Afghanistan as it is for us in the West. It's not as urgent a matter as security, as food, as being able to get medical care for their kids. I'm just not sure what a reliable gauge of women's liberation in Afghanistan the burqa is."

Oppression becomes almost ritualistic in A Thousand Splendid Suns, cruelty heaped upon cruelty, despair buried beneath despair. Even though Afghanistan's reality seems to render melodrama virtually impossible, Hosseini reluctantly admits that he spared readers the worst of what he saw that spring he returned.

"Some things I saw in Kabul I'd rather not talk about," he says. "Some things were just so cartoonishly heinous as to defy all comprehension." He refuses to elaborate.

He wants to go back again someday, and hopes there might come a time when it will even be safe enough to take his two young children, to show them where he came from, to show them where he came from, to scavenge for them memory's bits of beauty still hidden in the ruins.
Biographical/Critical Introduction to Khaled Hosseini

Source: Khaled Hosseini and Tamara Jones, "An Old, Familiar Face: Writer Khaled Hosseini, Lifting the Veil on Afghanistan." Washington Post (28 May 2007): C1.

Gale Database: Contemporary Literary Criticism

Book Choice Submission

Title: The Kite Runner

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Publication Date: May 29th 2003

Number of Pages: 324

        I chose the novel The Kite Runner mainly because of recommendation. I have heard that it is an excellent story with a in-depth plot. From a personal level I was intrigued to read the book because it is based in the war ridden land on Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been known for its brutality and violent war zones and I am particularly interested in reading about that. The Kite Runner covers Afghanistan's monarchy through the soviet invasion and many other aspects.

      So far the novel is rather slow. I am finding hard to keep my interest in it, but I imagine once I get farther in the story it will become more interesting as the plot thickens. At the beginning it is mainly introducing the characters and the main character speaking of a past event from 1975 in the current year of 2001. He does not describe what exactly happened during the year of 75' but informs us of how it made him who he is today.

      I have only read through the first and second chapter currently. Unfortunately the amount I have read only gives me a brief look of the story so far with some details of character development and a small portion of the stories background, but I am looking forward to what the future of reading this story brings!

      So far the main character Amir Khan and his friend Hassan take a stroll through the streets of San Francisco and he sees a child flying a kite and it reminds him of the past. Amir's father Baba was also introduced, and his mother was mentioned whom had died in the process of giving birth to Amir.Currently the mood of the story feels rather " gloomy" as the past of the men seems rather depressing and life changing.

      There are currently no major themes in the story. So far the story had given a rather sad and depressing mood to the reader. It seems that these two men have had to go through substantial amounts of the harsh realities of life. Their past seems to be a part of their lives that they can not forget about and I believe it is something that bothers them even being so far in the past. I think the author is trying to add more depth to the story and build a connection from the reader to the characters in the story by making the reader learn about their past life in Afghanistan.

     There are several secondary sources on The Kite Runner. Personally I don't find them too confusing to read although they do seem to be quite choppy at times particularly when quotes are referred to. I do find the secondary sources to be interesting to read because it is an alternative view on the story. On some occasions  the writers of these secondary sources critique the novel and have a different aspect that I personally wouldn't have picked up on.

    "And made me what I am today" [Amir Khan, page 2]. I choose this quote because I believe it is something everyone can relate to. Many people, including me can say there is something that has happened in their lives that was a changing point or something that affected them for their whole life. Alike Amir, I personally had the experience that changed my outlook on life. For several people the death of someone close to them, would be something that made them who they are today. Whether or not it was anything to do with a decision they made to do something or to stop doing that particular thing, it has potentially changed who they are as a person. In the end, a particular instance in one's life can change their perspective on life forever.