biography of khaled hosseini

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Khaled hosseini, m.d., novelist and activist.

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What It Takes is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.

I was so taken with the story and so swept up in that world that I had to write it.

Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan, the oldest of five children, and spent the first years of his childhood in the capital city, Kabul. His family lived in the affluent Wazir Akbar Khan district of the city, in a cultivated, cosmopolitan atmosphere, where women lived and worked as equals with men. His father worked for the foreign ministry, while his mother taught Persian literature, and Khaled grew up loving the treasures of classical Persian poetry. His imagination was also fired by movies from India and the United States, and he enjoyed the sport of kite fighting he portrayed so vividly in his book The Kite Runner .

In the early ’70s, Hosseini’s father was posted to Afghanistan’s embassy in Tehran, Iran, where young Khaled deepened his knowledge of the classical Persian literary tradition that Iran and Afghanistan share. Although Afghan culture lacked a long tradition of literary fiction, Hosseini enjoyed reading foreign novels in translation and began to compose stories of his own. He also made the acquaintance of his family’s cook, a member of the Hazara ethnic group, a minority that has long suffered from discrimination in Afghanistan. Young Khaled Hosseini taught the illiterate man to read and write, and gained his first insight into the injustices of his own society.

The Hosseinis were at home in Kabul when the 200-year-old Afghan monarchy was overthrown in 1973. The king’s cousin, Daoud Khan, proclaimed himself president of the new republic, but a long era of instability had begun. In 1976, Hosseini’s father was assigned to the embassy in Paris, and Khaled moved, with the rest of his family, to France. Although he did not know it at the time, it would be 27 years before he would see his native country again. Only two years after their arrival in Paris, a communist faction overthrew the government of Afghanistan, killing Daoud Khan and his family.

Although the new government was purging civil servants from the old regime, the Hosseinis still hoped that they might be able to return to Afghanistan. Infighting among the new leaders, and armed resistance to the regime in the countryside, plunged the country into chaos. The Hosseinis were still in France when the Soviet army entered Afghanistan in December 1979. The Soviets attempted to reinstate their communist allies, while numerous armed factions attempted to expel them. The Soviet occupation would last nearly a decade, while five million Afghans fled their country.

A return to Afghanistan was now out of the question for the Hosseini family, and they applied for political asylum in the United States. Young Khaled arrived in San Jose, California in the fall of 1980 at age 15, speaking almost no English. Having lost everything, his family subsisted for a time on welfare, and father and son went to work tending a flea market stall alongside fellow Afghan refugees.

In his first year of school in the U.S., Khaled Hosseini struggled with English, but his encounter with John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novel The Grapes of Wrath rekindled his love of literature, and he began to write stories again, this time in English. Khaled’s father found work as a driving instructor, and the family’s situation gradually improved, but Khaled, as the oldest child, felt a particular responsibility to succeed in the new country.

Determined to make a better life for himself and his family, Khaled Hosseini studied biology at Santa Clara University and medicine at the University of California, San Diego. He completed his residency at UCLA Medical Center and began medical practice in Pasadena. Now married, Khaled and his wife, Roya, decided to return to Northern California to be nearer their families. Dr. Hosseini joined the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization and settled in Mountain View, California to start a family.

Throughout his medical studies, Hosseini had continued to write short stories in his spare time. Happily settled in his new country, he found his thoughts returning to the land he left behind. After the departure of the Soviets in 1998, the extremist Taliban faction had seized control of Afghanistan, imposing a brutal theocratic rule and providing a base for anti-Western terrorists. Women’s rights, which previous regimes had promoted, were completely eliminated along with all foreign art or culture. Hosseini felt compelled to tell the world something of the life he had known before his country was consumed by war and dictatorship. In 2001, with the encouragement of his wife and father-in-law, he decided to try expanding one of his stories into a novel.

For a year and a half, he rose at four o’clock every morning to work on his novel before a full day of seeing patients. When the United States and allied countries launched military operations in Afghanistan, he considered abandoning the project, but with the defeat of the Taliban, he felt it more important than ever to tell his story to the world. With the eyes of the world turned on his country, he completed his tale of two Afghan boys, childhood friends separated by the calamities of war, and the divergent paths their lives take. Once Hosseini found an agent to handle the manuscript, the book was soon placed with publisher Riverhead Books, a division of the Penguin Group. The Kite Runner was released, with little publicity, in 2003.

Initial sales of the book in hard-cover were slow, but word of mouth built gradually as copies of the book were passed from reader to reader. The paperback edition found an enthusiastic audience around the world. The Kite Runner spent more than two years on The New York Times bestseller list, and returned to the list, five years after its initial appearance. As of this writing, it has sold more than 12 million copies, with editions published in more than 40 languages. Although it was greeted with acclaim in most circles, some Afghans objected to Hosseini’s portrayal of ethnic prejudice in Afghanistan. Hosseini had no regrets, and hoped that his treatment of the subject would spark an overdue dialogue among his fellow countrymen.

Following the success of his book, Hosseini returned to Afghanistan for the first time in 27 years. He was shocked by the devastation that years of war had wrought on the city he knew as a child, but moved to find the traditional spirit of hospitality and generosity was unchanged. Everywhere, he heard stories of the tragedies his countrymen had suffered.

Hosseini continued to practice medicine for a year and a half after his book was published, but the demands on his time eventually compelled him to take a leave of absence. In 2006, he agreed to serve as a special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, assisting displaced persons in war zones around the world. In this capacity he has traveled to eastern Chad to meet with refugees from Darfur and returned to Afghanistan to meet with refugees returning from Iran and Pakistan.

Since his 2003 visit to Afghanistan, Hosseini had been at work on a second novel, focusing on the experience of women in pre-war Afghanistan, during the Soviet occupation and the civil war, and under the Taliban dictatorship. His new book, eagerly awaited by an army of readers, was published in 2007. A Thousand Splendid Suns takes its title from a poem by the 17th-century Persian poet Saib-e-Tabrizi. The story follows two women, Mariam and Laila, both married to the same abusive man. Like its predecessor, A Thousand Splendid Suns became a massive international phenomenon, topping the bestseller lists as soon as it was published. The paperback edition spent over two years on the New York Times bestseller list.

Later that year, The Kite Runner became a highly acclaimed motion picture, photographed in Kashgar province in the far west of China. Although the producers of the film were American, they chose to shoot the film in the Dari language to preserve the authenticity of the story. A controversy erupted in Afghanistan because a sexual assault against a young boy is depicted in the film. The child actor and his family were threatened with violence by traditionalists who believed this portrayal to be shameful. Release of the film was postponed while the boy and his family were relocated.

For the time being, Dr. Hosseini has given up his medical practice to write and continue his work for the United Nations. His third novel, And the Mountains Echoed , was hailed by The New York Times as his “most assured and emotionally gripping story yet.” In July 2022, The Kite Runner , adapted by Matthew Spangler from the 2003 novel by Khaled Hosseini , opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater.

Khaled Hosseini’s novel  The Kite Runner  has become an international publishing phenomenon and a modern classic. This tale of childhood innocence betrayed, set against three tragic decades in the history of Afghanistan, gave readers around the world an insight into the human truth behind the headlines.

This unforgettable book is the product of Khaled Hosseini’s own life experience. Born in Afghanistan, his family fled to the United States when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. In the U.S., Khaled Hosseini became a successful physician, but he longed to tell the world something of the life he knew before his country was consumed by war. He rose at four o’clock every morning to work on The Kite Runner before a full day of seeing patients. Following the enormous success of his first book, a second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns , soon joined it on the bestseller lists.

In addition to his thriving literary career, Dr. Hosseini now serves as a special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, assisting displaced persons in war zones around the world.

Tell us about your childhood in Afghanistan. Where did you live?

Khaled Hosseini: I was born and raised in Kabul. We lived in a neighborhood called Wazir Akbar Khan, which was one of the up-and-coming neighborhoods in Kabul.   My father was a diplomat. He worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul, and my mother taught Farsi and history at a very large high school for girls.   So I grew up in Kabul. I lived in Kabul until I was about five or six, lived in Tehran a couple of years —    kind of the diplomat family moving around.   Came back to Kabul and left just before the communist — a couple of years before the communist coup — in 1976.

You were one of five?

Khaled Hosseini: Yeah, I was the oldest of five. I have three brothers and a sister and the enumerable cousins and second cousins and whatnot and people that I consider cousins, who are not really actually related to me at all. The whole concept of family in Kabul is very loose, so I just had a very extended rich social life.

One gets that impression from The Kite Runner of a very close-knit community, even in the United States.

Khaled Hosseini: We came to the U.S. in 1980, this was a few months after the Soviets invaded, right around the time that President Reagan was elected, just before. And there was a seed of Afghan communities in the East Coast and the West Coast. We were one of the early families that came to the U.S. in Northern California. We lived in San Jose, my family still lives there. And there were a number of families there already. Some of them we knew, some we got to know. And then over the ensuing decade or two, we watched that community explode, and more and more families came, you know, people brought their brothers and their sisters and their cousins. And the next thing you knew, you had the genesis of an actual community, both in Virginia, near Fairfax, Arlington, D.C. area, and also in Northern California in the East Bay, around the cities of Fremont, San Jose. Now that community is about, I would say, maybe 80,000, 90,000 people, maybe more. And there is Afghan businesses and people interacting and Afghan social clubs and organizations and so on and so forth.

Back to the Kabul of your youth. What were the political circumstances at that time?

Khaled Hosseini: Afghanistan was a monarchy for over 200 years. We had King Zahir Shah, who passed away within the last year. King Zahir Shah had been on the throne since 1933. In 1963, a couple of years before I was born, he instituted a constitutional monarchy, and that was in effect for about ten years. My memory of that era, it was very peaceful and quiet. But in retrospect, it was an interesting time politically, a time of polarization, and to some extent, people were disillusioned with sort of the reforms and promises that had been made through the constitutional monarchy that never really panned out. And that was the circumstance under which the king was overthrown in 1973. He was away in Italy getting medical treatment. His first cousin overthrew him in a bloodless coup and took over, and Afghanistan’s era of monarchy was over and it became a republic.

I actually remember the night that the king was overthrown.   I was in Kabul, my parents were at the hospital where my mother was giving birth to my youngest brother that night, and we heard the gunshots, and we heard the tanks rolling in and all of the rumbling. I was home with my grandmother, and I said, “What is that noise?”   And she said, “Oh, they hunt ducks at night. Don’t worry about it, they’re just hunting ducks.”   I wake up in the morning, and there’s a couple of buildings have been damaged and so on, but otherwise there was not much violence.   We woke up to a whole new country.   So that was the reality, the political reality at that time.   And then again, there were economic reforms and more promises and so on made.   I left in 1973 when the president, Daoud Khan, was still in power, and it was from Paris where my father was working for the Afghan Embassy that we watched everything unravel, first with the Soviet, the communist coups of April ’78, and subsequently the invasion in December ’79 by the Soviet Union.

What a surreal experience that must have been to watch it from afar.

Khaled Hosseini: Yeah, surreal and very difficult in a way, because at that time, people didn’t have any real reason to leave Afghanistan. So…

We had a lot of family and friends in Kabul.   And the communist coup, as opposed to the coup that happened in ’73, was actually very violent.   A lot of people rounded up and executed, a lot of people were imprisoned.   Virtually anybody that was affiliated or associated with the previous regime or the royal family was persecuted, imprisoned, killed, rounded up, or disappeared.   And so we would hear news of friends and acquaintances and occasionally family members to whom that had happened, that were either in prison or worse, had just disappeared and nobody knew where they were, and some of them never turned up.   My wife’s uncle was a very famous singer and composer in Kabul who had been quite vocal about his dislike for the communists and so on and he disappeared.   And to this day, we have no idea what happened to him.   So that sort of thing, we began to hear news over in Europe of mass executions and really just horror stories.   So it was surreal, and it also really kind of hit home in a very real way.

Going back to your childhood, were you a serious student in school?

Khaled Hosseini: I was a very serious student in school.   My parents were both — they weren’t intensely involved with our studies, but they were involved in a very global fashion in the sense that they told us that education is really important, you have to do your homework, you have to study and you have to do well.   And those were the principles in the house.   That was our job, to study and do well.   So I was a good student, all of my siblings were good students.   We were all pretty sensible kids. Homework and school always came first.   And so I did well when I was in school in Kabul in all of my subjects, and those were kind of a lesson and principles that served me well when I came over to the U.S. in 1980.   I had already developed the habits of being a good student and being very diligent, and so I did very well in high school here and through college and so on.   So I always was a pretty good student.

Did you like to read as a kid?

Khaled Hosseini: I loved to read as a kid. In fact, I was raised in a household where classic Persian literature and poetry was revered and prized. Both of my folks were really into it and they got us into it. In fact as a kid, I grew up around the likes of Saadi and Hafez and Omar Khayyam and Rumi and people like that. And I really discovered the novels at a little bookshop in Kabul, because there is not a great tradition of novel writing in Persian literature, certainly not in Afghanistan. There is a great tradition, an ancient tradition of poetry, but not of prose novel. So I discovered Western novels, though translated into Farsi, at a local little bookshop in Kabul, and it was there that I read my first novels. I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Alice in Wonderland . I think they had these condensed young adult editions of classics like Don Quixote and Ivanhoe and Treasure Island , and I remember reading all of those and just falling in love with the format. And then they also had serialized novels that they would publish in magazines, and I was really a sucker for those as well. So I really fell in love with prose at that time and I began writing my first short stories at that age. I was probably eight or nine years old when I began writing. I really loved it, and I was really passionate about it. I felt so in my element when I was writing. And pretty much since then, I haven’t stopped writing. It is really kind of when my history of writing began.

You mentioned the Farsi language. Could you explain for us what languages are spoken in Afghanistan and which ones you grew up with?

Khaled Hosseini: Afghanistan is a kaleidoscope of different ethnicities, tribes, sub-tribes, families and so on. Every region has its own dialect and its own local culture. So there are many, many different dialects, but there are two main languages. One is Farsi, or Dari, which is probably the more correct way of saying it. We speak the same language as in Iran — they call it Persian or Farsi. In Afghanistan it’s called Dari. It’s a slightly different dialect, closer to the roots of the actual language and has a different accent. Kind of like English being spoken in Texas and maybe in Ireland. Same language, just some words are different and some of the accent. The other main language is Pashtun, which was spoken in various parts of the country. It was spoken in Kabul as well, but I largely grew up in a Dari-speaking environment. Both of my parents were from Herat, which is a Dari-speaking city. So I grew up with Dari. I learned Pashtun in school. It was mandatory to learn Pashtun in school, but I never ever spoke it at home, and I have forgotten all of my Pashtun at this point.

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Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini is the bestselling Afghan born American author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns . He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan on March 4, 1965. His father was an Afghan diplomat who worked at the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother, a high school teacher taught Farsi and History in a large Kabul school. The family moved to Paris in 1976 when the foreign ministry gave relocation orders to Hosseini’s father. Instead of returning to Kabul in 1980, the family sought political asylum in the United States due to the terrible conditions in Afghanistan after the invasion of the Soviet army. They were granted the asylum and they moved to San Jose, California in September, 1980.

In 1984, Khaled graduated from the Independence High School moving on to studying Biology at Santa Clara University. He graduated with Bachelors in Biology in 1988 after which he attended the University of California-San Diego’s School of Medicine where he completed his M.D. in 1993. Having undergone residency in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, Hosseini became a physician and practiced medicine during the years of 1996 and 2004. He conceived the idea of and began writing The Kite Runner while making a living as a medical practitioner in 2001.

The Kite Runner was published in 2003, immediately becoming an international bestseller. The novel was published in 70 countries, however, never in Afghanistan. While some parts of the novel are based on Hossein’s childhood, the novel is otherwise a work of fiction. According to Nielsen BookScan, The Kite Runner secured the number three best selling position in the United States in 2005. It was also produced as an audio book recorded in Hosseini’s voice. In 2007, The Kite Runner was adapted to screen bearing the same title as the novel. Hosseini made a brief appearance in a scene towards the end of the movie.

While The Kite Runner focuses mainly on relationships between men, Hosseini’s second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns revolves around the relationship between two women. It was released in 2007. With positive reviews from leading sources, the novel has so far been published in 60 countries and set to be made into a movie by producer Scott Rudin and Columbia Pictures who have acquired its rights.

Having set both his novels in Afghanistan, Hosseini’s devotion to his homeland extends beyond his writings. His activism for a better Afghanistan is proof of his love for the country. Since 2006, Hosseini has served as a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR. His official website also contains information and links to many aid organizations helping Afghanistan in addition to The Khaled Hosseini Foundation which provides humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan. The foundation came into being after a trip Hosseini made to Afghanistan in 2007. Having gone there for the first time in twenty seven years, Hosseini was immensely disturbed to discover the situation of the country he was born in.

Described as a smart minded handsome man by interviewers, Khaled Hosseini was declared the most famous Afghan in the world by Time Magazine. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Roya and their two children.

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KHALED HOSSEINI

The 20th anniversary edition of the #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by readers the world over, with a new afterword by Khaled Hosseini

Since its publication in 2003, The Kite Runner has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic of contemporary literature, touching millions of readers, and launching the career of one of America's most treasured writers.

“Hosseini’s writing makes our hearts ache, our stomachs clench, and our emotions reel.”

— USA Today

About Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Kite Runner , A Thousand Splendid Suns , and And the Mountains Echoed . Hosseini is also a U.S. Goodwill Envoy to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.

Also by Khaled Hosseini

The Khaled Hosseini Foundation

The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. The Foundation funds grantees who provide humanitarian relief and shelter to families, economic opportunity for women, and healthcare and education for children in Afghanistan.

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‘There’s So Much More to Afghanistan’: Khaled Hosseini Reflects on His Birthplace

The author of “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns” talks about the pain and frustration of watching the country from afar.

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By Elizabeth A. Harris

Like so many people, the novelist Khaled Hosseini watched Afghanistan fall to the Taliban over the past few days with horror and sadness.

Though he has lived in the United States since 1980, he was born in Kabul, and his best-known books, like “ The Kite Runner ” and “ A Thousand Splendid Suns ,” are deeply rooted in the country’s history and culture. In a phone interview on Wednesday, he expressed his frustration that Americans, and the rest of the world, have for so long heard about the country in the context of death and destruction, and rarely from the people who live there.

“If you look up stories about Afghanistan,” he said, “it’s always about violence, it’s about displacement, it’s about the drug trade, it’s about the Taliban, it’s about the U.S. initiatives. There is precious little about the Afghan people themselves.”

Millions of readers have turned to his books for this perspective, though he considers that a mixed blessing, saying that neither he nor his fiction should be considered representative of his homeland. “But I do have a perspective, and I do feel strongly about what’s going on in Afghanistan,” he said.

He shared his thoughts on the country, what people seeking a stronger understanding of it should read and what he sees as America’s moral obligation to the Afghan people. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How has your sense of Afghanistan’s future changed over the year?

I was in Afghanistan early in 2003, and in those days, there was virtually no insurgency. There was this very heady optimism about this semi-Jeffersonian democracy, and about where the country was headed — gender equality, rights for girls and women, people being able to participate in an open and representative political process. All of that was in play.

Over the years we adjusted our expectations, and over time we came to expect that, well, that was all a pipe dream, but at least what we can hope for is a compromised sort of democracy, with corruption and all sorts of issues. But at least Afghans in the cities, for sure, appear to be safe. They know there’s been a lot of progress in the last 20 years in Afghanistan, and that gave me hope. And of course, over the last couple of years, those hopes have declined. And in the last few days, they have been utterly crushed.

What should people be reading to better understand Afghanistan and Afghan people right now?

They should be reading history books. They should be reading people who really know Afghanistan and know it well. A lot of people have relied on my books to kind of get a view into what Afghanistan is, and that’s fine, but I have never intended for my books to be representative of what Afghan life is. I hope people dig much deeper than that and read history books and learn more about Afghanistan in that way.

But there has been an uptick in demand for your books. Is there anything you want people to know who are picking up one of them for the first time?

These are stories. This is the perspective of someone who has lived in exile, essentially since 1980. Salman Rushdie said that the viewpoint of the person in exile about their homeland is always through a cracked mirror, and that’s very true for me. I’ve always been very careful about making sure that people don’t mistake me for some kind of Afghan ambassador or Afghan representative. I haven’t lived there in a long time.

But I do have a perspective, and I do feel strongly about what’s going on in Afghanistan, and I have a deep affection and a deep emotional connection with the people there, with the land, with the culture, with the history and the heritage. I hope my books provide a little bit of insight on what Afghanistan is, beyond the usual story lines that we see in the media about Afghanistan as a breeding ground for terrorism or the Taliban, the opium trade, the cycles of war.

There’s so much more to Afghanistan. It’s a beautiful country with a beautiful, humble, kind, welcoming, hospitable and charming people. Everyone who’s been to Afghanistan says, “I’ve been to a lot of places in the world, but I’ve never been to a place like Afghanistan.” We call it the Afghan bug — people who go there become infected with the Afghan bug. It’s a very special place. It’s a beautiful place, both physically and the people themselves, and, once you know that, once you’ve had a taste of that, once you’ve been in touch with those people, and broken bread and had tea, the tragedies, the stuff that you see on television, take on a whole other dimension. It becomes personal, and it just becomes very, very painful.

What else do you want people reading this to know?

Many, many Afghans bought into what the U.S. was selling. They aligned themselves with American objectives, they bought into American initiatives, fully aware that that would make them targets in the eyes of insurgent groups like the Taliban. They did it anyway in the hope of a better future for the country, in the hope of a better future for the children, in the hope that the country would become more stable and more peaceful, more representative of all sections of Afghan society. I believe they were unbelievably courageous to do it.

So I want people to reach out to their representatives, to their leaders, and say, We have a moral obligation to those people, we have to evacuate those people. We cannot allow our partners — the U.S. has been calling the Afghan people “our partners” for 20 years — we cannot allow our partners to be murdered. To be imprisoned, to be beaten and tortured and persecuted now that we have left. We have a moral obligation to follow through.

Elizabeth A. Harris writes about books and publishing. More about Elizabeth A. Harris

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Khaled Hosseini: 'If I could go back now, I'd take The Kite Runner apart'

T here's no question that Khaled Hosseini merits the term "publishing phenomenon". His two heart-tugging, blockbuster novels, set in his native Afghanistan, offered simple tales of redemption and grace while the ugly realities of war in the country rumbled through the news. His debut, 2003's The Kite Runner , written in the early mornings before work as a doctor, was followed by 2007's A Thousand Splendid Suns . Together they've sold over 38m copies worldwide.

We meet on the eve of publication of his new novel, And the Mountains Echoed , in a midtown Manhattan hotel bar where Hosseini expresses relief at finally having a scotch in hand. He has a quiet self-possession, a creased handsomeness to him – perhaps more creased today than usual: mass international appeal also means mass international press demands. He explains that the new novel began with a single image: a man towing a small wagon through the desert at night. In the wagon are two children; a brother and sister.

"I heard these stories about what a harrowing ordeal wintertime is for families in Afghanistan ," he says. "People are terribly afraid and they lose their kids. So, with this background, suddenly this image came out of the blue, delivered with pristine, perfect clarity. And I was like: who are these people? Where are they going?"

The answer – a desperate father is on his way to Kabul to sell one of his children – provides the genesis for the novel's many narratives. The agony of the siblings' separation echoes down generations and across continents.

Hosseini though, puts it simply: "The book is kind of like a fairytale turned on its head. You have a very painful rupture at the beginning and then this tearful reconciliation at the end, except the revelations and the reconciliations you're granted aren't the ones you're expecting. Which is how life is, really."

This isn't how the world appeared in Hosseini's fable-like previous books. Their characters are the kind EM Forster might have classified as "flat" rather than "round". The Kite Runner 's Hassan, for example, is, as Hosseini puts it, "a lovely guy and you root for him and you love him but he's not complicated". Everyone in the new novel finds themself morally compromised at some point.

The most stark example of that, he says, "is the warlord – this sort of evil benevolent lord. And it's something I've seen in Afghanistan a lot, these charismatic, larger-than-life figures who people are simultaneously afraid of, in admiration of, dependent on."

The central and most resonant line of the novel, though, is spoken not by a person but by a div , a demonic giant of Afghan folklore. When a peasant's beloved son is taken by the creature, he sets out to rescue his child, knowing he will most likely be killed for his audacity. Instead, the div shows him his son playing happily with other children. The father has to decide whether to leave his boy there – happy and provided for – or to take him back to a harrowing and potentially short life in a village blighted by droughts. Despondent, he accuses the  div of cruelty. It replies: "When you have lived as long as I have, you find that cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same colour."

Hosseini is 48 – not exactly Methuselan then, but old enough to look back on his first two novels and see a different writer: a writer for whom cruelty and benevolence were very much two different colours.

"Yeah, it looks like the work of somebody younger than me," he says, a little ruefully. "I'm glad I wrote them when I did because I think if I were to write my first novel now it would be a different book, and it may not be the book that everybody wants to read. But if I were given a red pen now and I went back … I'd take that thing apart."

He was similarly exacting with this novel's ending. "I sort of dreaded this kind of Hollywood-ish thing and I could see it inching that way and was a little worried." Then he reread his first chapter, which includes the story of the div and the peasant father. It ends with an act of mercy: the div gives the man a potion that erases his memory, and with it, the pain of having lost his son. "And I was like, ah, this is how the book needs to end, with this idea of memory as a way that we make sense of our life. It's this amazing gift – to treasure all those things that matter to us the most, that form our identity. But it's also very cruel because we relive those parts of our lives that are so painful. I could see that if the reunion were to occur, it would occur on these terms and it wouldn't be the reunion we'd expect and perhaps the one we want."

Among Hosseini's most compelling creations in the new novel is Nila Wahdati, an alcoholic poet. One chapter takes the form of a Paris Review-style Q&A in which she's simultaneously charming and insufferable. "I didn't want her to be likable," he agrees. "I just wanted her to be real – full of anger and ambition and insight and frailty and narcissism."

Hosseini was born in Kabul in 1965, the first child of his diplomat father and teacher mother. Nila came, he says, from the kind of parties he remembers his parents throwing while he was a teenager in the 70s, when a certain stratum of Kabul's middle class was undergoing Westernisation.

"There would be really striking women in short skirts," he recalls. "Beautiful, very outspoken, temperamental, endlessly – in my young mind – interesting. Drinking freely, smoking. Nila is a creation from my memory of that kind of woman from that time and that place."

It was, however, a place that he left when he was just 11 years old. His father's work took them to Paris, and then, when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prevented them from returning home, they sought political asylum in the United States and settled in California. Hosseini, aged 15, was plunged into a San Jose high school, speaking no English.

"It was a culture shock," he says. "It was very alienating." Was he bullied? "Worse – I was completely ignored. I felt on the periphery of high‑school culture; one of those invisible creatures that walk the campus. I think it was a lot worse for my parents. My dad was a diplomat and my mum vice-principal of a high school and now she's a waitress at Denny's, working the graveyard shift, and my dad is a driving instructor."

He adds: "There's nothing wrong with those things, but it was a regauging of their place in life. In Kabul they knew everybody, but in California nobody cared."

The family lived on welfare and, determined to ensure financial security, Hosseini resolved to become a doctor. He graduated from the University of California in 1993 and then completed his residency in internal medicine at Los Angeles's Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in 1996.

One of the new novel's most powerful sections includes an Afghan-American doctor whose compassion is tested by a trip to his homeland. Hosseini, who says he doesn't miss medicine one bit, admits that the character is deeply autobiographical.

"I went back and I'm like, this is my home city," he says. "I learned to speak here, I got into my first fistfight here – and, at the same time, it's no longer home. I don't want to act the ugly, entitled Afghan-American and go around backslapping people, pretending I'm one of them, full of bonhomie. That's disingenuous. I wasn't here when those guys were getting blown to pieces, so I'm not going to act like I was now that things are better."

And Hosseini, of course, isn't really an average Afghan-American but a celebrity. Sales of The Kite Runner began snowballing when the book came out in paperback, and it spent 101 weeks on the US bestsellers list. In 2007 it was made into a film ; the movie adaptation of A Thousand Splendid Suns is due in 2015.

In the past decade he has enjoyed several moments of disbelief. The first, he recalls, came on a flight when he realised the woman beside him was reading The Kite Runner . "She was reading my book! And I couldn't believe it. I didn't do anything, and she never said anything, but I noticed that she was really into it."

The second time: "I was watching TV and I flipped the channels just in time to catch myself as the answer to a  Jeopardy! question." He smiles and shakes his head. "And then the phone rang and my cousin said, oh my God, are you watching Jeopardy! ? So that was like: OK, people are reading my book."

But even while patients of his were coming in just to have their copies signed, he continued to work at the clinic for a year and a half. How long did it take him to think of himself as a writer? "Oh, a long time. And even now I'm a little …" he trails off, with a quiet laugh. "It's a little pretentious – 'I'm a writer'. I can't take it seriously. It's just like, oh get over yourself, you know?"

That kind of humility has no doubt helped his status as book-club favourite – particularly, it seems, among women. "Literary fiction is kept alive by women," he says. "Women read more fiction, period. That said, I'm always thrilled and feel a great sense of pride when I see a 17-year-old varsity wrestler at a high school and he says, 'Man, I love your book and I wanna read more!'"

I ask him what is the most common thing fans tell him. "Oh, they say they cried." He gives a little laugh. "I feel ambivalent about that. I'm touched, but I don't want to be the guy that writes these books that make people cry. It presupposes a kind of calculated effort to extract a specific emotion out of the reader and that's not the way I work. Everything that happens happens because I feel it, you know? Whatever the readers feel when they're reading my books, I feel it tenfold when I'm writing it."

I ask him whether the knowledge of such an enormous readership wanting more of the same ever feels suffocating. "You would think, but I'm so involved in figuring out this puzzle that it saves me from all that stuff. The only fear that I have is what if that goes away … I do live with the very real possibility that we don't have endless stories to tell."

Family, though, seems to be fruitful territory for him. "In Afghanistan, you don't understand yourself solely as an individual," he says. "You understand yourself as a son, a brother, a cousin to somebody, an uncle to somebody. You are part of something bigger than yourself. The things that happen within families … I'm so fascinated by how people destroy each other and love each other."

And Hosseini shows me a picture on his phone of his two kids clutching the printed-out manuscript, thumbs up, mugging gleefully.

And the Mountains Echoed is published by Bloomsbury.

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Khaled Hosseini on the 20th Anniversary of The Kite Runner

The author reflects on an unlikely path to publication.

A book never belongs more to its writer than while it is still in the act of being summoned forth from the imagination. Through most of 2001, while still a practicing physician, I woke at 4:30 a.m. daily and spent three hours alone in the early morning darkness with Amir, Hassan, Baba, and the rest of the souls populating The Kite Runner . Then I showered, dressed, and drove to the clinic to treat ailing hearts and aching joints and dormant thyroids. I listened to wheezing lungs and injected cortisone into frozen shoulders. But Amir never strayed far. I had a foot in his world every waking hour, and he in mine.

Hunched over the kitchen table in the quiet dark of those early mornings, my ownership over Amir’s tale felt total. Our bond was thrillingly private. Amir and Baba became my delicious secrets. I had the illusion that everyone around me lived one life, while I lived many. But once a book leaves its creator for bookstore shelves, that connection with the characters is no longer exclusive. Out in the world, Amir and company formed bonds with others. They became the center of a many-spoked wheel—with me as the original spoke. They whispered to each reader in their own unique and private language, as they once did to me. They pitched tents in the minds of strangers continents away. My ownership diminished.

Just how many tents they pitched, in how many countries, stunned me—in how many languages, and on how many stages and movie screens they shared their story. It’s still hard to believe. While it’s now thought of as a runaway success story, The Kite Runner ’s path to publication was unlikely, to say the least. I was an unknown, part-time writer with no literary track record. The book was dark. Really dark. For much of it, the protagonist was cowardly, self-involved, covetous, needy, dishonest, unethical, and infuriating; meanwhile, the characters who were actually noble, true, and just fell to the worst fates. And Amir’s long, gut-wrenching journey ended on barely a whisper of a hopeful note. Not the ideal formula for a bestseller.

The manuscript was roundly rejected by more than thirty literary agencies—nearly all of them with the two-sentence boilerplate “Thank you but this isn’t right for us” variety of response. The rejections did not surprise me, and I take some pride in reporting that I took them in stride. The only rejection that stung did so for unexpected reasons. The agency had actually read and liked the chapters I had sent, and the letter was promising at first. But it declined me representation because it felt that the US public had moved on from Afghanistan; the agency was instead combing for stories about Iraq. This was June of 2002, barely nine months after American forces and Afghan mujahideen had forced the Taliban from power. I was shaken by what the note implied about America’s perspective and priorities, that Afghanistan was destined to go forgotten once more. It was a disturbing revelation and an ominous sign of things to come for my birthplace.

In June of that year, The Kite Runner was published to solid reviews and sales that I would charitably call modest. I went on a two-week-long national book tour in the US, an often humbling experience that left me dubious about the book’s future prospects. I spoke to mostly empty bookstores. After, I returned home and went back to seeing patients at the clinic. Life resumed a semblance of normalcy, and all was quiet for a little over a year. My second daughter was born. The Kite Runner wasn’t making much noise, and though I remained deeply proud of it, I had resigned myself to the reality that in the end it was just another book in a sea of books. I went back to being a husband, a father, and a doctor.

Then in the fall of 2004, a couple of months after the paperback was released in the US, something strange began to happen. I would walk into local coffee shops and spot people reading the book. I began to receive invitations to speak at libraries, universities, and at community-wide reading programs across the country. Once, I sat on an airplane next to a middle-aged woman who was reading the paperback and dabbing at her eyes. I thought about introducing myself, but my constitutionally private nature proved prohibitive.

Just why The Kite Runner has become so popular isn’t entirely clear to me, but based on letters that I have received over the past two decades, I can take an educated guess. There is a universality to this tale of a boy who feels inadequate and longs for his father’s love. Amir is deeply flawed; he can be maddening, and his cowardice and hypocrisy at times border on appalling. But I think he is always recognizably human. He walks the world painfully aware of his faults and failures. They haunt him through adolescence and into adulthood. He knows that a more noble version of himself lies somewhere ahead, but the reach is far, the path treacherous, and to get there he must summon the courage he disastrously lacked as a child. Despite our aversion to his actions, we root for him, perhaps because we find fragments of ourselves reflected in him: We all know we fall short; we all want to walk in the shoes of that more noble self. The Kite Runner hit the New York Times bestseller list in September of 2004, fifteen months after it first came out, and squatted there for an absurdly long time.

While this development did wonders for my writing career, it complicated my medical practice in ways I had not expected. I had twenty to thirty minutes to see each patient, but I noticed that I was spending a rather disproportionate fraction of that time instead answering questions about Amir and Hassan and personalizing copies of The Kite Runner, cutting down on time available to treat those edematous ankles and flaring sciatic nerves. I realized a choice had to be made, a choice further forced on me by the fact that I was working on my second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the deadline for which was looming. In December of 2004, I bid farewell to medicine and dedicated myself full time to writing.

All these years later, I am deeply grateful for what The Kite Runner has done for my life. It has allowed me to pursue my lifelong love of writing as a career. I bear enormous respect for the medical profession, and I was honored to be entrusted with the health and well-being of my patients, but it was never my true calling. Writing was my first love, my high school sweetheart, and to make a livelihood tending to one’s passion is a staggering privilege.

But I am most grateful that The Kite Runner has changed the way readers around the world see Afghanistan, offering those unfamiliar with the country a more human, nuanced, and textured portrait. For so long, stories about Afghanistan revolved around war, displacement, hunger, extremism, and the maltreatment of women and girls. Sadly, many of those stories remain relevant today, but they are not the only truths of the place. I am delighted when I receive letters from readers in Italy, India, Israel, the UK, Brazil, and other regions, expressing newfound appreciation for Afghanistan and its rich history, its transcendent beauty, and the humble, poetic soul of its too often beleaguered people.

 __________________________________

The 20th Anniversary Edition of Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner is available from Riverhead.

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Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini was born on the 4 th of March in 1965, in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is a very bright middle-aged writer. He is the son of Nasser, a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry, while his mother was a Persian Language teacher in Afghanistan. He spent eight years in Kabul. Later, due to his father’s job, the family moved to several places. In 1976 they moved to Paris in 1976. Due to the Saur Revolution, they never returned to their homeland. Later, the Hosseini family sought political asylum in the United States.  During his early years in the United States, Hosseini faced cultural shock and isolation due to the language barriers, which he later fictionalized in his works.

Khaled Hosseini graduated from high school in San Jones in 1984 . Later, he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Santa Clare University in 1988. In 1993, he earned his M.D. from the University Of California San Diego School Of Medicine. After completing his education, he became a medical practitioner and continued his job for ten years. However, throughout his medical schooling, he continued writing short stories , expressing his sentiments about his homeland, making people aware of life in Afghanistan in the pre-war period.

Some Important Facts of His Life

• Khaled Hosseini is one of the successful writers of this century. He has created a charity called the Khaled Hosseini Foundation to support and help the people of Afghanistan.
• His universally acclaimed novel , The Kite Runner , used for a movie adaptation in 2007.
• He speaks English fluently along with his native Pashto and Dari.
• While working on his residency, he married Roya. The couple has two children, Farah and Haris.
• On account of his literary services, he earned many achievements, including the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize in 2004, British Book Awards, and Book Sense Book of the Year with various other awards.

Khaled is an effectively influential author of recent times, who had practiced medicine for several years before taking up the pen. Although he did well in the chosen field, the magnetic pull of the homeland kept on persuading him to make people aware of Afghanistan. Having a great interest in literature led him to write short stories and novels. Weaving the story of two Afghan boys, he wrote his first novel, The Kite Runner , in 2003. Although the initial sale of the book was not quick, his hard work paid off after a time. The book made inroads into the literary world and introduced him to the literary canons of that time.

Prompted by this success, Khaled decided to reserve more time to his writing with an intent to present pre and post-war Afghan to the world. Following the success of his first work, he returned to his homeland after twenty-seven years. He was devastated to see the war-ridden area. Although he returned from the United States in 2003, the destruction and devastation he witnessed there always pricked his conscience. Keeping in mind the women’s experiences under Taliban dictatorship and in the time of war, he published his next novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, in 2007 . The book earned massive success and immediately became an international bestseller. Later, in 2013, he presented the hardships of two siblings and their family circumstances in his novel And the Mountain Echoed. Sea Prayer, published in 2018, is his recent work that presents the story through images.

Khaled, as a writer, with his creative, witty, and philosophical ideas brought variety to the literary world. His early works primarily focused on life in Afghanistan. Starting from the overtly topical vein in his novel, The Kite Runner , he shifted to the social and political climate and the radical shifts in Afghanistan. He chose ordinary characters to present the miserable plight of the people living in the war-ridden area. Using a wistful writing style in his pieces, he successfully creates certain experiences for his audience . Implying a haughty and mighty style, he explored the tragedies of life in his works. In fact, his imaginative and humanistic ideas, coupled with his unconditional love for his homeland, allowed him to document his unique thoughts. The recurring themes in most of his novels are destruction, war, gender oppression, and patriarchy and unfairness and injustice.

Some Major Works of Khaled Hosseini

• Best Novels : Some of his major works include And the Mountains Echoed, The Kite Runner , A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Sea Prayer.

Khaled Hosseini’s Impacts on Future Literature

Khaled Hosseini’s opinions about Afghan life before and after the war have won accolades from people all over the world. His distinctive writing approach and unique way of expression have made him stand among the best writers of the world. Many great writers and critics applaud his ideas and owe much to his inventiveness in nostalgic writing. He has successfully documented his ideas about his country while living in the United States that various people from Afghanistan now try to copy his style.

Famous Quotes

• “I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany , but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night .” ( The Kite Runner )
• “It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything all right. It didn’t make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird’s flight. But I’ll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. ( The Kite Runner )
• “They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.” ( And the Mountains Echoed )
• “Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.” ( A Thousand Splendid Suns )

Related posts:

• The Kite Runner Themes
• The Kite Runner Characters
• The Kite Runner Quotes
• The Kite Runner

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Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini is an American novelist who was born in Afghanistan in 1965. Although he is a physician also, his fame resides in the publication of two remarkable novels “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns”. After graduation, Hosseini joined the medical profession in California. However, after the successful publication of “The Kite Runner”, which is set in Afghan society, he left medicine to pursue his writing career.

A major feature of Hosseini’s novels is a vivid representation of his native land, Afghanistan. He shapes his protagonists either as submissive women characters facing patriarchal domination in the Afghan life, or people suffering from the repressive strategies of the state and society. His voice can be regarded as a representative of the Afghan culture. He highlights the traditional values and notions of Afghan society by making them known to the modern world.

A Short Biography of Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini was born on 4 March 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father, Nasser Hosseini, worked as a diplomat in the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hosseini’s mother, supposedly from a Mohammadzai family, was a teacher of history and Persian at a Kabul high school. They both were from the town Herat. This gave Hosseini the ethnicity of both Tajik and Pashtun origin.

He lived in a middle-class area of Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood for eight years of his early life. He remembers only good memories from the area. For example, he recalls that his sister, Raya was never handled like a submissive gender. He also flew kites with his family members and friends in his childhood, which provided a biographical experience for Hosseini’s “A Kite Runner”.

In 1970, when Hosseini was eight years of age, the family moved to Tehran, Iran. Nasser Hosseini was appointed in the Embassy of Afghanistan in Iran. They returned to Kabul in 1973 and the youngest child, Hosseini’s brother, was born in the Hosseini Family.

When he became 11 years of age; the Foreign Ministry designated Nasser Hosseini in Paris, France, in 1976 to work in the Afghan Embassy there. When they were about to return to their homeland in 1980, the Soviet invasion and communist takeover (1979) made it difficult for them to come back. Due to the Saur Revolution (1978), the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan took control of the Afghan government.

Therefore, the family applied for political asylum in the United States. They were granted permission and they shifted to San Jose, California in September 1980. Hosseini later described the experience as a “cultural shock” because he could not speak English and was not accustomed to western life.

Khaled Hosseini was admitted to a high school and graduated in 1984. In 1988, he received a bachelor’s degree in biology at Santa Clara University. The next year, Hosseini was enrolled in the University of California San Diego School of Medicine . In 1993, he finally got the degree and completed his post-graduate training in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai medical center in 1997. Later, from 1996 to 2004, he was an intern and a private practitioner in medicine.

He did not go back to his country until 2001. When he visited Afghanistan for a short trip at the age of 36, he “felt like a tourist” in his native homeland, Hosseini later said. He also suffered from “survivor’s guilt” for leaving his country before the Soviet invasion and wars.

He got married to Roya Hosseini and has two children, Haris and Farah Hosseini. Haris Hosseini is a competitive speaker and the family lives in Northern California together.

Writing Career

Beginning of career.

Khaled Hosseini began his writing career with “The Kite Runner” in 2001. He used to write the novel at 4 am before going for work as a practitioner. It was published in 2003 by Riverhead Books which received instant fame. The novel became the New York Best Selling novel for a long time. This novel recognized Khaled Hosseini as one of the notable writers of the 21 st century.

In “The Kite Runner” a young boy, Amir, struggles with the haunting memories of the past life. He also tries to create a harmonious bond with his father. The novel occurs in contemporary Afghan society. It is set in a period from monarchy till post-Taliban rule as well as in California in the San Francisco Bay area.

The protagonist lives in California but he spent his childhood in Afghanistan in the 1970s. In the past, he had a close friendship with Hassan, the son of a servant. Being the son of a respected family, he later dissolves his relationship with Hassan.

The novel is widely known for its strong storytelling technique. It is also criticized by some critics as having melodramatic effects. However, the sweeping popularity of “A Kite Runner” encouraged the author to become a professional writer for the rest of his life. He left medicine for a writing career in 2004.

Hosseini’s Wide Recognition

This recognition as a supporter of Afghan refugee issues and social disturbance triggered his appointment as a Goodwill Ambassador in 2006 for the UN High Commission for Refugees. He also founded The Khaled Hosseini Foundation after a visit to Afghanistan with UNHCR. It provides support to the needy people in Afghanistan.

Second Novel

In 2007, Hosseini issued his second novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns”. It depicts similar themes of political and social struggles as “The Kite Runner”. However, the story turns towards a feministic perspective and narrates the life events of two female characters, Laila and Mariam, both living with their aged offensive husband.

The story depicts the individual lives of the involved characters during the chaotic thirty years of Taliban and soviet rule. The novel received its inspiration from a visit of Hosseini to his homeland where he saw women wearing veils and living a dependent life. The second novel was also issued by Riverhead Books in 2007.

And the Mountains Echoed

In 2013, Hosseini produced “And the Mountains Echoed”. It represents the entwined relationship of love and sacrifice of a brother and sister when they get separated. The sister is given to a family for adoption because her family cannot afford more members. It foreshadows the 1950s siblings’ divergence in Afghanistan.

Hosseini’s 2018 short story, “Sea Prayer” is inspired by the most popular incident of the death of a Syrian infant refugee. He drowned in 2015 in the Mediterranean Sea. In the short story, Hosseini reflects on a father and son’s wish to leave war-torn Syria.

Life in War

In the backdrop of a war-torn country, Hosseini highlights the importance of life and the value of personal relationships. His novels are mostly set in the wartime society of Afghanistan. Therefore, his works depict how war affects the lives of the characters in every possible way. The individuals live in a persisting fear and threat of death. Moreover, they wake up with the news of the death of their loved ones and live amid riots and bombing.

Whenever life is in threat, we care for loved ones and family life regardless of material prosperity. In this way, through Hosseini’s novels, we realize the importance of life and family when we are forced to think like a war situation and perceive the death of near ones.

As in “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, Laila loses her family in a bombing incident. She witnesses her father and mother dying before her eyes with their bodies shattered in the air. Only then, she realizes how important survival is in a war-torn society and marries an elderly man for her survival.

Because of the personal experiences of Hosseini’s family of losing their family and homeland, his novels are marked by a common theme of loss and disillusionment. The characters face loss in the form of family life, friends, love, dignity, property, and innocence.

For example, in “And the Mountains Echoed”, the presented family loses their daughter because of their financial crisis. In “The Kite Runner”, the protagonist faces a loss of connection and love with his father and his best friend Hassan.

The Feeling of Love

In his novels, Hosseini depicts his idea of love how love affects the life of a person. Love needs sacrifices and patience. Moreover, he presents love as a powerful feeling that induces intense care and compassion in individuals. It also tests the vulnerability of characters to risks in the journey of protecting their loved ones.

Nonetheless, for Hosseini, love is not only the emotion of two opposite genders. He depicts multi-natured relationships of love i.e. between family members, parental love, romantic attachment, and friendship. In all of Hosseini’s novels, the theme of love encourages the characters to fight for a better existence, make struggles for freedom, and grant forgiveness.

Partiality and Injustice

Another significant theme of Hosseini’s novels is the partiality and injustice that his characters face. They suffer through the hands of an insulting husband, forced marriages, war, and dominating parents. The main lesson these victims of society teach is how to fight off the negative impacts of the issues they face.

For example, in his novels, the characters fall in a pit of rejection, depression, anger, and confusion when they face injustice by society. In “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, Laila and Mariam face harsh circumstances because of a failed marriage but they cope with it by gaining independent encouragement. Mariam kills her oppressive husband and Laila begins a new life with Tariq, her former love.

Male Dominance

One of the most important issues of Eastern society that Hosseini portrays is the patriarchal oppression and male dominance in society. The women are treated as submissive and possession of men. As in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” the female characters are considered toys of their husband, Rasheed, who forces them to work for him. He also beats them like animals. At the end, the first wife kills him. This shows that women are also living beings with emotions and they need love and respect.

Political Conditions of the Time

Hosseini vividly portrayed the political conditions of Afghanistan in his novels. Although he was not living in his homeland, he was aware of the political chaos and reflected it in his work. This added realism to his work because he precisely pointed out the era of Soviet invasion and Taliban rule in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and “The Kite Runner”. Also, he discussed the siblings’ divergence of the time in “And the Mountains Echoed”.

Khaled Hosseini’s Writing Style

Khaled Hosseini is one of the notable American writers. His writings reflect on the life of the Afghan homeland he had left as a child. Therefore, he is considered as a “spokesperson” for Afghan values.

Empathetic Tone

Hosseini’s novels are famous for their empathetic tone and common human feelings. His stories penetrate deep into the human soul and dig out the universal nature of humanity and their values that separate good from the bad. For example, Hosseini’s works have a unified sense of the fundamental human emotions like love, hatred, betrayal, revenge, power, forgiveness, redemption, and loss.

For example, in “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, there is enough destruction caused by the powerful sects on a larger as well as individual scale. Likewise, there is a mutual feeling of love and intimacy between Laila and Tariq, and Laila and Mariam. Similarly, the domination of Rasheed over his wives also shows power over the weak and submissive. These instances create an empathetic feeling with the social life of Middle Eastern people. These universal feelings also develop oneness with the whole of humanity.

In “The Kite Runner”, this empathetic tone continues to recur. For example, the protagonist has an intimate relationship with his servant. However, as he grows with time and his social standing is distinguished, he breaks up with him. This is also a universal human trait.

Middle Eastern Stereotypes

As the readers roam around the dramatic lives and problems of Middle Eastern characters, they develop a strong bond with them. Particularly, Hosseini’s major concern was to impart a positive image of the Middle East. He also tried to change the stereotypical concepts of the West about eastern life.

This struggle can be seen in all of his novels in which he describes the cultural and traditional values of Eastern life in satisfying terms. For example, in “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, the stereotypes of veil “burqa” and “nang” (honor) are discussed from the perspective of an abusive husband. These are then challenged when a dependent and submissive wife kills her husband to get her family out of his unnecessary oppression.

Sympathetic Tone

Hosseini’s writing style is that of a sympathetic and disgusted tone for the main characters as they face the brutality of the social system in their everyday lives. However, he uses the tone of disapproval for the brutal dominant figures of society. Moreover, Hosseini enforces his tone and thoughts vividly through the use of imagery and symbolism.

As in “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, when Mariam is compelled by the situation to live with her father who had long deserted her, the author uses the tone of extreme sympathy and pity for her.

The works of Hosseini reflect a hidden optimism in the minds and actions of the characters. As they face rejection and failures in their lives, they still succeed in getting themselves out of the challenges. For example, in “The Kite Runner”, Amir is caught in a conflicting situation with a troubled relationship with his father and the disturbing memories of the past. However, he actively struggles to resolve his inner and outer conflicts.

Likewise, in ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns”, Laila moves from traditional conservative family life to a liberal and modern lifestyle by defeating the obstacles that come in her way to get a better modern life.

Dialogues and Imagery

Hosseini also sometimes applies a dialogic form to his narration to give it a conversational form. For instance, when Nana forbids Mariam from going to the cinema with her father in “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, the narration takes the form of dialogues.

Likewise, his novels have visual representations and create lucid imagery to present his thought more clearly and precisely.

Achievements

Hosseini received several prizes for his great pieces of literature with a realistic depiction of Eastern society. He was awarded the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize for “The Kite Runner in 2004. In 2008, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” was awarded British Book Awards for Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year. The same year, the novel was awarded Book Sense Book of the Year Awards for Adult fiction and California Book Award Silver Medal in 2007. In 2013, “And the Mountains Echoed” got the Goodreads Choice Award for fiction.

Works Of Khaled Hosseini

Biography of Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini was born on March 4, 1965 in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan as the oldest of five children. His father worked for the Afghan Foreign Ministry as a diplomat, and his mother was a high school teacher of Farsi and history. When he was five years old, his family moved from Kabul to Tehran, Iran. They returned to Kabul in the historic year of 1973, when Afghanistan became a republic. In 1976, his family followed his father to Paris. After the PDPA (the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) seized control of the government in 1978 and the Soviets occupied Afghanistan shortly thereafter, the Hosseini family decided to seek political asylum in the United States instead of returning to Kabul. They moved to San Jose, California, where Hosseini graduated from high school. He attended Santa Clara University and earned a degree in biology.

After college, Hosseini decided to become a physician. He attended the University of California-San Diego's School of Medicine, where he completed his M.D. in 1993. He served his medical residency at the well-respected Cedars-Sinai hospital of Los Angeles and became an internist. Hosseini started writing The Kite Runner in 2001 while he was a practicing physician.

Hosseini published The Kite Runner in 2003 to critical acclaim. Parts of the novel are based on Hosseini's childhood in the Kabul neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan. While some events in the story echo those in this life, the novel is fictional. By May 2007, it had been published in thirty-eight countries but not Afghanistan.

In 2003, while The Kite Runner was gaining a vast following, Hosseini returned to Afghanistan for the first time in twenty-seven years. He was disturbed to discover just how terrible the situation there had become, even though he had already written a very graphic fictional account of it. Hosseini has stated that a combination of luck and material privilege saved him and his family from suffering under the Soviets and the Taliban, much like his protagonist, Amir. He told Time Magazine that he struggled with his freedom: "I felt ashamed, like I should have suffered more." Hosseini felt estranged from the devastation in Afghanistan, but his separation from his homeland and his "Western sensibility" combined in his fiction to bring America's, and the world's, attention to the faces of Afghanistan.

Hosseini published his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns , in May 2007. Unlike The Kite Runner, which centers around relationships between men, A Thousand Splendid Suns focuses on those between women. In the months since its release, the novel has garnered a plethora of positive reviews.

Hosseini's devotion to Afghanistan can be seen not only in his writing but also in his activism. He has been a goodwill envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, since 2006, and his personal website contains links to many aid organizations that are helping Afghanistan. Interviewers describe Hosseini as a smart, handsome man with a calming air, and Time Magazine called him "almost certainly the most famous Afghan in the world." Khaled Hosseini lives with his wife and two children in Northern California.

Study Guides on Works by Khaled Hosseini

And the mountains echoed khaled hosseini.

And the Mountains Echoed is the third novel written by Khaled Hosseini in 2013. It was published on May 21, 2013. The book is written in the genre of historical drama. It won the Goodreads Choice Award in the category "Fiction" and Paris Review...

• Study Guide

The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini's first novel. He was a practicing physician until shortly after the book's release and has now devoted himself to being an author and activist. The story of The Kite Runner is fictional, but it is rooted in real...

• Lesson Plan

A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, was written after Hosseini traveled back to his native Afghanistan to examine for himself the nation’s situation in the aftermath of decades of turmoil. In early 2007, Hosseini told Time...

Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini

• From Curriculum
• Literary Criticism & Themes
• Historical Context

Khaled Hosseini

Bio (from www.khaledhosseini.com).

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and history at a high school in Kabul. In 1976, the Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then their homeland had witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet Army. The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States, and in September 1980 moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1988. The following year he entered the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, where he earned a medical degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles and was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004.

In March 2001, while practicing medicine, Hosseini began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner , which was published by Riverhead Books in 2003. That debut went on to launch one of the biggest literary careers of our time. Today, Khaled Hosseini is one of the most recognized and bestselling authors in the world. His books, The Kite Runner , A Thousand Splendid Suns , and And the Mountains Echoed , have been published in over seventy countries and sold more than 40 million copies worldwide.

In 2006 Khaled was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency . Inspired by a trip he made to Afghanistan with the UNHCR, he later established The Khaled Hosseini Foundation , a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. He lives in Northern California with his wife and two children.

Interview with Hosseini (NPR)

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• Last Updated: Dec 7, 2021 8:22 AM
• URL: https://rtnj.libguides.com/c.php?g=882545

About Khaled Hosseini

Afghan-american novelist.

Quick Facts

Khaled Hosseini is a highly regarded and significant modern novelist whose compelling prose and moving stories have captured the attention of people all over the world. Born on March 4, 1965, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Hosseini has become a well-known author thanks to his personal experiences and strong ties to his own country.

Hosseini’s family was forced to flee Afghanistan in 1976 due to political upheaval, and they eventually settled in the United States. His cosmopolitan upbringing enabled him to combine his Afghan roots with immigrant experiences to form a distinctive worldview. His compositions frequently address themes of identity, family, love, grief, and the human condition, reflecting this blending of cultures.

Hosseini’s unique perspective has earned him a place among the most celebrated authors of our time. His works have touched the hearts of readers worldwide, and his ability to weave together complex themes with beautiful prose is truly remarkable. As a writer, Hosseini has the rare gift of being able to transport his readers to another time and place, immersing them in the rich tapestry of his stories.

• He was born on the 4th of March, 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan.
• He resides in the United States.
• He has a degree in biology from Santa Clara University.
• He briefly lived in Iran.

Interesting Facts

• He studied Medicine at the University of California.
• He is multilingual and speaks Dari(Persian), English, and French.
• He is a philanthropist and established The Khaled Hosseini Foundation for Afghans in distress.
• He started writing poetry in Persian at the age of nine.

Famous Books by Khaled Hosseini

• A Thousand Splendid Suns starts with Mariam being brought to Kabul at the age of fifteen to wed the disturbed and resentful Rasheed, who is thirty years older. Over twenty years later, amid an atmosphere of escalating unrest, tragedy befalls fifteen-year-old Laila, forcing her to leave her family and join Mariam’s sad home. Laila and Mariam will find comfort in one another, and their friendship will develop into something as strong and lasting as the bonds between sisters and mothers and daughters. Taliban dominance over Afghanistan comes with time, and the streets of Kabul are filled with the sound of gunfire and explosives. Life is a desperate struggle against hunger, violence, and dread, and the women’s endurance is put to the worst of its limits. But love has the power to inspire individuals to do unexpected actions and inspire them to conquer the most difficult challenges with unexpected heroism. In the end, love prevails over annihilation and death. ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns ‘ depicts a devastated nation and tells the tale of a family, a close friend, a cruel era, an improbable connection, and an unbreakable love.
• The Kite Runner narrates the tale of twelve-year-old Amir, who was determined to win the neighborhood kite-flying competition with the help of his devoted friend, Hassan. However, fate had other plans for the two young boys, and the events of that day would change their lives forever. As Amir grows older, he realizes that he must confront the demons of his past and seek redemption for his actions. He knows that he must return to Afghanistan, a country now ruled by the Taliban, to find the one thing that his new world cannot provide him: closure. Amidst the chaos of the Russian invasion, Amir’s family is forced to flee to America, leaving behind the only home they have ever known. But even as he begins to build a new life in a new country, Amir cannot escape the memories of his past. He knows that he must face his fears and return to Afghanistan, no matter the cost. This powerful story of friendship, betrayal, and redemption is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is a reminder that no matter how far we may run, we can never truly escape the past. But with courage and determination, we can find the strength to confront our demons and find the redemption we seek.
• And the Mountain Echoed is a captivating multigenerational literary masterpiece that delves into the profound impact of decisions on individuals and their families. The story commences in a small Afghan town where a family, grappling with financial difficulties, is faced with the heart-wrenching decision of separating their beloved daughter, Pari, from her cherished sibling, Abdullah. Hosseini’s novel is an exploration of the complexities of human relationships and the consequences of our actions. Through his vivid portrayal of the characters’ struggles and triumphs, he highlights the interconnectedness of our lives and the ripple effects of our choices. ‘And the Mountains Echoed ‘ is a must-read for anyone seeking a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant literary experience.

Literary Career

Influence and legacy.

Khaled Hosseini’s books have all gotten positive reviews from critics and readers alike. They’ve received a lot of appreciation for their potent storytelling, poignant impact, and ability to illuminate Afghan history and culture. Hosseini’s novels have sold millions of copies worldwide, solidifying his position as one of the most successful contemporary authors. His literary works have captivated readers across the globe, earning him a well-deserved reputation as a master storyteller.

Literature by Khaled Hosseini

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Khaled Hosseini

How to pronounce Khaled Hosseini: HAH-lehd ho-SAY-nee

Khaled Hosseini Biography

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and History at a large high school in Kabul. In 1970, the Foreign Ministry sent his family to Tehran, where his father worked for the Afghan embassy. They lived in Tehran until 1973, at which point they returned to Kabul. In July of 1973, on the night Hosseini’s youngest brother was born, the Afghan king, Zahir Shah, was overthrown in a bloodless coup by the king’s cousin, Daoud Khan. At the time, Hosseini was in fourth grade and was already drawn to poetry and prose; he read a great deal of Persian poetry as well as Farsi translations of novels ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer series. In 1976, the Afghan Foreign Ministry once again relocated the Hosseini family, this time to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had already witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet army. The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States. In September of 1980, Hosseini’s family moved to San Jose, California. They lived on welfare and food stamps for a short while, as they had lost all of their property in Afghanistan. His father took multiple jobs and managed to get his family off welfare. Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology in 1988. The following year, he entered the University of California-San Diego’s School of Medicine, where he earned a Medical Degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and began practicing Internal Medicine in 1996. His first love, however, has always been writing. Hosseini has vivid, and fond, memories of peaceful pre-Soviet era Afghanistan, as well as of his personal experiences with Afghan Hazaras. One Hazara in particular was a thirty-year-old man named Hossein Khan, who worked for the Hosseinis when they were living in Iran. When Hosseini was in the third grade, he taught Khan to read and write. Though his relationship with Hossein Khan was brief and rather formal, Hosseini always remembered the fondness that developed between them - a relationship that is reflected in his first novel, The Kite Runner (2003). He is the author of the  New York Times  bestsellers  The Kite Runner ,  A Thousand Splendid Suns , and  And the Mountains Echoed.  Hosseini is also a U.S. Goodwill Envoy to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.

Khaled Hosseini's website This bio was last updated on 08/23/2018. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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In two separate interviews, Khaled Hosseini discusses The Kite Runner (2003) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007); his experience growing up in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion and the rise of the Taliban; the role of women in Afghan society; how Afghans view the USA and much else.

In a separate interview that follows, recorded in 2003, he discusses his first novel, The Kite Runner . The Kite Runner helped alter the world’s perception of Afghanistan, by giving millions of readers their first real sense of what the Afghan people and their daily lives are actually like. Your new novel includes the main events in Afghanistan’s history over the past three decades, from the communist revolution to the Soviet invasion to the U.S.-led war against the Taliban. Do you feel a special responsibility to inform the world about your native country, especially given the current situation there and the prominent platform you’ve gained? For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda. It is quite a burden for a writer to feel a responsibility to represent his or her own culture and to educate others about it. For me it always starts from a very personal, intimate place, about human connections, and then expands from there. What intrigued me about this new book were the hopes and dreams and disillusions of these two women, ...

Books by this Author

Books by khaled hosseini at bookbrowse.

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