The Kite Runner

In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country’s political turmoil–in this case, Afghanistan–while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on his first try.The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir’s father’s servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. (“…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.”)

Some of the plot’s turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America’s collective consciousness (“people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz”), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon.

Hosseini’s stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy’s parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid ’90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do Kabul merchant, is the first-person narrator, who marries, moves to California and becomes a successful novelist. But he remains haunted by a childhood incident in which he betrayed the trust of his best friend, a Hazara boy named Hassan, who receives a brutal beating from some local bullies. After establishing himself in America, Amir learns that the Taliban have murdered Hassan and his wife, raising questions about the fate of his son, Sohrab. Spurred on by childhood guilt, Amir makes the difficult journey to Kabul, only to learn the boy has been enslaved by a former childhood bully who has become a prominent Taliban official. The price Amir must pay to recover the boy is just one of several brilliant, startling plot twists that make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the true nature of his relationship to Hassan. Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium.

In The Kite Runner, Amir and Hassan grow up together in Afghanistan like brothers, although they couldn’t be more different. Amir is the son of a wealthy businessman, a Sunni Muslim, a Pashtun, and he’s educated and reads voraciously. Hassan’s father is a servant to Amir’s father, and Hassan is a Sh’ia Muslim, a Hazara, he’s illiterate, and he has a harelip. But neither boy has a mother and they spend their boyhoods roaming the streets of Kabul together. Amir, though, continually uses his superior position to taunt or abuse Hassan, and one day hides in fear as Hassan is beaten mercilessly by bullies. The Soviet invasion of Aghanistan sends Amir’s family to the United States, but he returns there as an adult during the Taliban rule to atone for his sins to Hassan. Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan émigré living in San Francisco and his debut novel has received mostly good reviews. The Denver Post says The Kite Runner “ranks among the best-written and provocative stories of the year so far.”

• Hardcover: 371 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead (May 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573222453
• ISBN-13: 978-1573222457
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches

“Amir lives a charmed life in a wealthy neighborhood in 1960’s Kabul. He shares the joys of boyhood with his best friend, Hassan, the son of the family servant who is more like a brother to Amir, and their favorite pasttime is summer kite fighting. But Hassan is a despised racial minority in Afghanistan and when Amir betrays Hassan to the neighborhood bully, his guilt sets the rest of his life on a new course, constantly seeking redemption for his own weakness. When the Soviets invade Russia, Amir and his father flee for the United States where Amir marries and begins a writing career. He is never fully able to forget his betrayal of Hassan and, when his father’s business partner in Pakistan sends a deathbed summons for him, Amir returns to Kabul for a last chance to find absolution.” Jennifer Martin-Romme, Resident Scholar

“Amir, the son of a successful Pashtun businessman, lives a comfortable life in Kabul, Afghanistan in the early 1970s. His best friend is Hassan, a year younger and the son of a servant, who is like a brother to Amir but still a member of the despised Hazara minority (descendants of the Mongols and Shi’a Muslims). The boys’ favorite sport is kite fighting, which takes place every winter. Amir competes in the contest where boys use razor-sharp kite lines to sever one another’s lines, and Hassan is the best in the city at running and retrieving fallen kites. The two boys reach a turning point in 1975 when the neighborhood bully Assef savages Hassan (after the servant boy had defended Amir from the bullies) and Amir does nothing. The guilt for that betrayal, as well as Amir’s troubled relationship with his father Baba, will rule his life for the next 20 years. The Russian army invades Afghanistan and drives Amir’s family over the border to Pakistan. Eventually they make their way to Fremont, California to make a new life. But in December of 2001 a phone call out of the past summons Amir back to Pakistan, and then Kabul itself, now under the crushing rule of the Taliban, to discover long-buried secrets and make amends with his guilty conscience. ” David Loftus, Resident Scholar

“   This story is about a man named Amir, who tells the tale of his life, beginning with his innocent days as a young, wealthy boy, who enjoyed playing with his servant’s son, Hassan. The two are the best of friends, although Amir often regrets admitting it, as Hassan is much lower in status. The story builds a foundation on the fact that Amir is constantly vying for his proud, headstrong father’s affections. Sometimes he even feels as though he has not come from his father’s blood, because of his lack of courage and pride. One day, during an annual kite-flying competition, Amir manages to make his father extremely proud by winning. All he must do is retrieve the loser’s kite, which is Hassan’s job. Hassan, a faithful servant to Amir, does everything in his power to capture the kite. When Hassan doesn’t return from his kite hunt, Amir goes out to look for him, only to find that Hassan is in big trouble with the rich village bullies in the middle of a dark alley. Rather than jump out and defend Hassan, as Amir’s father would have done at his age, Amir hides out and witnesses the nightmare Hassan must deal with for the rest of his life. After encountering the horrible event that took place in that alley, and feeling very uncomfortable about it, Amir selfishly finds a way to get rid of Hassan and his servant father from the house. For the rest of his life, from his tragic flee out of Kabul as a teenager, to his impoverished struggle as an immigrant in America, Amir searches for a way to save himself.” Priyanka Bhandari, Resident Scholar