Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns
A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) is Khaled Hosseini’s follow-up to his best-selling debut novel, The Kite Runner (2004).
I read The Kite Runner a few weeks before Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed it. A gripping plot set against the backdrop of Afghanistan sees a young man trying to make up for an act of cowardice in his youth. So, when the holidays rolled around, A Thousand Splendid Suns made it onto my Christmas list. A Thousand Splendid Suns is written from the perspective of two Afghan women as their lives become intertwined.
On his blog, Khaled Hosseini puts it best;
“In some ways, I felt that this was a book that I had to write. My first novel, The Kite Runner, was dominated by men and I knew, even as I was finishing it, that I was going to write about Afghanistan again and that this time I would write about Afghan women. The struggle of Afghan women was simply too compelling, too tragic, and too important and relevant a story, and both as an Afghan and as a writer, I knew that I couldn’t resist writing about it.”
A Thousand Splendid Suns starts off slow, intricately introducing the main characters and painting vivid pictures of the Afghanistan countryside. Soon enough, the pace picks up and the main characters are immersed in personal conflicts complicated by the political and religious upheaval that Afghanistan has been plagued with for the past few decades. Overall, a tremendous read which I highly recommend to any reader.