Release date: June 1st, 2007
Series: / standalone
Pages: 372
Genre: Fiction
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years - from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding - that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives - the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness - are inextricable from the history playing out around them.
Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love - a stunning accomplishment.
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After reading The Kite Runner that brought me close to tears, I couldn't wait to pick this one up. This story is happening at the same time as The Kite Runner, in the 80s, but it's about women in Afghanistan and all their sufferings and fates.
It is an absolutely heart-wrecking story about how women were completely without any rights, just living in a man's world.
This story is about two women; Mariam and Laila. Mariam was a harami, born out of wedlock. She got married at 15 to her father's friend who was over 40 years old and her life wasn't good.
It showed all the struggles women had behind closed doors, how men did anything they wanted to them and never had to answer for their sins; in fact, it was even encouraged to punish their wives for 'bad behaviour'. It was absolutely terrifying to read about this. Absolutely heart-wrecking.
And then Laila came into Mariam's life, a young girl who lost everyone and everything. Mariam and Laila form a strong friendship over time, both of them sharing the same struggles, both of them suffering in the same way.
They want to help each other, but they know there's no easy way out.
This book was absolutely amazing, written in such a beautiful way that it just made me feel everything. It was very rich in plot and so captivating, I just couldn't put the book down.
This is another one I can easily recommend by this author because it's definitely worth a read and it doesn't disappoint.
In 1976, when Hosseini was 11 years old, Hosseini's father obtained a job in Paris, France, and moved the family there. They were unable to return to Afghanistan because of the Saur Revolution in which the PDPA communist party seized power through a bloody coup in April 1978. Instead, a year after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in 1980 they sought political asylum in the United States and made their residence in San Jose, California.
Hosseini graduated from Independence High School in San Jose 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 his M.D. in 1993. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 1996. He practiced medicine for over ten years, until a year and a half after the release of The Kite Runner.
Hosseini is currently a Goodwill Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He has been working to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan through the Khaled Hosseini Foundation. The concept for the foundation was inspired by the trip to Afghanistan that Hosseini made in 2007 with UNHCR.
He lives in Northern California with his wife, Roya, and their two children (Harris and Farah).
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