After the unexpected success of his first novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini decided to focus his

second
book on a part of Afghan society often obscured from public view its women. "There are women characters
in The Kite Runner, but I wouldn't describe any of them as major characters," he says. "So there was this entire
aspect of Afghan society and Afghan life that I hadn't touched upon. It was a landscape that I felt was rich with
possibilities for storytelling."
Hosseini, a superb storyteller, realizes those possibilities fully in A Thousand Splendid Suns, his textured,
deeply affecting novel about the intersecting lives of two Afghan women. Mariam is the illegitimate daughter
of a wealthy Herat movie house owner. She grows up exiled with her mother to a hovel in the hills outside the
city, visited occasionally by the father she adores. When her presence at the periphery of her father's life
threatens family peace, she is forced into marriage with a shoemaker from Kabul. Life in Kabul goes from bad
to worse under the Soviet occupation. Her husband brutalizes her and eventually takes in, then marries, a
young, well-educated girl Laila who has been orphaned during the Afghan civil war. Most of A Thousand
Splendid Suns depicts the extraordinary relationship that develops under grim circumstances between these
two women.
"As a writer, the things that always move me are the intimate human stories, the links between the characters,
their dreams, their disappointments, their crushing defeats and their atonements," Hosseini says during a call to
his home in San Jose, California. Hosseini was an internist at a Bay Area Kaiser hospital before the
phenomenal popularity of The Kite Runner allowed him to take an extended leave of absence. He and his wife
have two young children. He briefly, politely, interrupts the call to kiss his son goodbye as he heads off to
school. Hosseini appears remarkably unaffected by the hoopla over his first novel.
But later in the conversation, Hosseini admits the success of his first book, which has sold more than 4 million
copies, cast a looming shadow over early attempts at composing the new novel. "Suddenly everybody was
interested in what I was writing next," he says with a pleasant, rueful laugh. "You go through these crises of
self-doubt. You wonder: Am I a hack? It took a little bit of work to ignore the noise outside my door." In fact,
for a while, Hosseini rented an office in a nondescript office building, a room with nothing on the walls to
distract him that he now calls his windowless bunker.
He worried about finding the right voice for the book, writing through four drafts using different approaches
and points of view. He chastised himself because he had not only decided to write from a woman's standpoint,
but had decided to write from the standpoints of two women. "I had to not only think about what it would be
like to be a woman, but I also had to think about what it would be like to be a different woman. As long as I
was self-conscious about the fact that I was writing from a woman's voice, it kept coming across as very self-
aware and contrived. But as I wrote and as I began to know these women, began to understand their
motivations, their dreams, began to understand them as people, the issue vanished on its own. At first I was a
ventriloquist and they were dummies speaking with my voice. But as I began to know them, the characters
took over and I became a mouthpiece for them. That was a watershed moment for me."
The completed book has the same big heart displayed in The Kite Runner, but even Hosseini (despite his
writerly doubts) believes the new story is more masterfully told. "I feel this is a more subtle and somewhat
more restrained book," he says. "I think that I, as a writer, have learned to trust readers and allow them to make
their own connections." One sign of such mastery is the way Hosseini weaves recent history into the narrative.
He says he struggled to restrain himself from getting too much into the history and political turmoil of those
years. But he eventually found that the intimate story of these characters and the bigger story of what is going
on in Afghanistan twisted around each other like a DNA strand. "It is really by necessity, because these two
women happen to be living in the volatile period of recent Afghanistan history. There is no way I could have
told the story of Laila and Mariam without telling the story of Afghanistan."
In addition to their concern for the plights of Hosseini's characters, readers will be carried willingly from page
to page by the sensory and cultural details that enrich Hosseini's depiction of Afghan life in this era. Hosseini
grew up in Kabul before immigrating to the United States as a youth. His family was originally from Herat,
which he would visit for family gatherings. "I remember the city and how beautiful it was," he says. " I can
speak Farsi in both the Herati and the Kabuli accent. This is part of my background." Breaking his rule of
allowing only his wife to read and comment on drafts of his novels, he asked his father, a former Afghan
diplomat, to read the final draft and serve as a sort historical and technical advisor. In 2003, a time of cautious
optimism in Afghanistan, he visited Kabul. A Thousand Splendid Suns resonates with his remembered and
recently witnessed details of Afghan life.
"The writer side of me," Hosseini says at the end of our conversation, "wants what every writer wants: that
people respond to my characters, to feel their happiness and sorrow, and to be transported by them. Then
there's the other side of me. I am from Afghanistan. And although it's not my intention to educate people about
Afghanistan, I do hope that in some ways this novel gives people a window into Afghanistan, especially into
the difficult existence of Afghan women over the last 30 years. Maybe this novel will give some identity to the
nameless, faceless women in burqa walking down the street, so that a reader will now sense that these are real
people who have dreams and hopes and disappointments. Just like everybody else."

A few years ago, when Khaled Hosseini began writing fiction in earnest, he was reluctant to give up
his day job as an internist in California. "I thought it completely outlandish and unattainable, the
idea of becoming a writer," says Afghan-born Hosseini. Even after his first book, The Kite Runner,
became an international publishing phenomenon in 2003 (6 million copies in print in the U.S. and
18 million worldwide) and a critically acclaimed film, he still found it hard to imagine that his writing
career would last. "For a year and a half after its publication, I refused to believe that it was possible
that I could do this for a living," says Hosseini, 43. "I was reluctant to let go of the security of a very
stable life." But, he says, "when I started seeing people at airports reading my book, and when my
patients would come in to visit me, more out of a sense of getting a book signed than getting their
diabetes treated, I started to see the writing on the wall." He was wise to hang up his stethoscope. In
2007, his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, also hit number one, and has just appeared in
paperback. TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs sat down with Hosseini to discuss his work and his
native country:

How did you come to write A Thousand Splendid Suns?

I was finishing up The Kite Runner, which had turned out to be a novel about men — the lives of
men, fatherhood, brotherhood, and so on. Even as I was finishing the editing of that book, I had
decided that I had to write a second book and address the issues pertaining to women. So I put that
idea on the back burner and just kind of let it simmer. I went to Afghanistan in the spring of 2003,
and I met with people who worked for nongovernmental organizations, people who worked as
policemen, women who were working as teachers, and I basically just listened to their stories. The
purpose of the visit was to educate myself. I really wasn't thinking at all about researching a book.
But I came home with this amazing repertoire of eyewitness accounts and stories that were vivid and
heartbreaking, and that sat in my head for about another year. When I began writing this novel, all
those voices came back and I think the two main female characters in A Thousand Splendid
Suns were kind of inspired by my collective sense of what women in Afghanistan went through,
particularly since the withdrawal of the Soviets and the breakout of anarchy and extremism and
criminality. (See Art from war-torn Afghanistan.)

Was it hard to shift to a female perspective after you had been working so much from
the male perspective in The Kite Runner?
I didn't think it would be at first. I remember calling my agent and telling her what I was going to
write, and she said, "It sounds pretty daunting." And I didn't take this seriously at that time. But once
I got into the thick of writing, I thought I had really kind of cornered myself into a difficult spot,
especially since I had set my heart on writing from two women's perspectives, two very different
women. So it became very difficult, almost to the point where it kind of crippled the writing process.
I was agonizing over whether I was doing it right and obsessed with this notion that women live in a
different emotional arena. At some point I just let go and I began to view these two women, not as
Afghan women, but rather just people and focused on their humanity rather than their femininity.
Suddenly a really transformative thing happened. These women began to speak for themselves, and I
kind of became a mouthpiece for them rather than me speaking through them. The novel almost
wrote itself after that.

What has it been like for you in becoming so famous?

I don't feel I am. It's a very nice kind of quasi-fame being a writer, because you remain largely
anonymous and you can have a private life, which I really cherish. I don't like to be in the public light
all that much. I don't crave the whole fame thing at all. I'm a pretty uncomplicated person. I live a
very simple life with my family and I enjoy very ordinary things. I feel blessed that I can still do those
things without too much worry. When there is a moment when I'm recognized, people are invariably
gracious and very effusive about how they feel about my books. All in all, it's a very beautiful thing.

Does your medical training inform your writing in any way?

Not that I'm aware of, frankly. Part of the attraction of writing when I was in practice was that it was
such a radically different undertaking than medicine, which is very regimented and straightforward.
I guess the only thing I would say is, both as a writer and as a doctor, especially in primary care, you
have to have a sense of people. It doesn't hurt to have some kind of understanding of why people
behave the way they do, what motivates them, what they're afraid of, what they're hoping. I will say
that there is an inordinate amount of medicine in my novels, especially the first one. There are a lot
of medical things that happen. A hip fracture, three different kinds of lung cancer, pneumonia, blood
poisoning, and so on.

Recently, there was that horrible story about an acid attack on schoolgirls in
Afghanistan. Do you have thoughts about that?
We're facing a very difficult challenge in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, there are people we are battling
who don't feel that an enlightened, educated society is necessarily in the best interest of Afghanistan.
This has been going on for quite some time. My publisher built a school in my name, on my behalf
and on behalf of all the educators, the teachers, the librarians, and booksellers in this country who
supported The Kite Runner and made a donation to the organization that I'm affiliated with, the U.N.
Refugee Agency. They built a school in a region I had visited last year, just about 150 kilometers from
Kabul in Northern Afghanistan. That school is a beautiful pink building. It has 270 students, grades 1
through 6, six teachers, two of them women. A third of the students are girls. There have been
threats against them that they should not go to school. But nevertheless they go. There is such a
hunger, a craving for education, for self-improvement, for enlightenment. I have school-aged
children of my own and to see them every morning kind of groaning about having to go to school, the
irony hits you pretty hard.

Are you encouraged by the new Administration [vis a vis Afghanistan]?

You have to be. Absolutely I'm encouraged. Afghanistan has been in the shadow of the Iraq war for a
number of years. But I don't envy Mr. Obama his task in Afghanistan. The scale of the conflict has
changed, and there's going to be no quick fix, no quick solution. I think we have to accept that we're
going to be engaged there long-term. What long-term means, I don't know, but certainly years and
possibly a decade or two.

Are you well known in Afghanistan? Have they read your books?
In Afghanistan today there is, among men, maybe a 70 to 75 percent illiteracy rate. Among women
it's probably higher than 80 percent. So the people who tend to read novels are the educated, urban,
progressive, affluent professionals. So it's a skewed pool of readers to begin with. Among them, I
think the opinion is divided, largely on the side of being supportive. Not always agreeing with
everything that I've said, but being glad that these issues are being discussed, that Afghanistan is
being discussed. Also there is, I think, a sense of nationalistic pride. It's kind of a boost to their self-
esteem as it were. But there are always people who disagree, and in my estimation there is a minority
— I could be wrong — of people in that community who feel that my books are divisive, that they talk
about things that ought to be kept private within the family, and they feel that I'm kind of capitalizing
and benefiting from the tragedy and the sorrow of other people. I don't agree with that at all, of
course. I feel that my books talk about issues that shape people's lives, that shape society and that are
important. I see it as my duty to parlay my own personal success and blessings [into benefits for]
Afghanistan and to try to hopefully make a meaningful impact there.

KEY FACTS
Title:
A Thousand Splendid Suns

Author:
Khaled Hosseini

Date Published:
2007

Meaning of the Title:

It refers to a poem in which the city of Kabul was described as having a thousand splendid suns. It
also is a symbol for Mariam.

Setting:
The story takes place in Herat, Afghanistan, and Gul Daman, a small village outside of Herat, and then
Kabul the capital city from 1958 to the present day. There is also some time in Murree, Pakistan.

Protagonists:
Mariam and Laila

Antagonists:
The antagonists are Rasheed, the Mujahideen, and the Taliban who abuse women and destroy their
country.

Mood:
At times, the mood is tragic, filled with despair, and very sad; at other times, it is uplifting and
hopeful; finally, it is a triumphant commentary on the human spirit.

Point of View:
It is written third person point of view from the perspective of an omniscient narrator.

Tense:
This story is written in the past tense until Mariam’s execution. Then, it reverts to present tense.

Rising Action:
The rising action begins with Mariam’s story of her childhood and ends with the climax which is the
death of Rasheed at Mariam’s hands.

Exposition:
The author tells a moving story of two very strong women in a country, Afghanistan, where women
are not valued. They both face what seems to be insurmountable odds when they are married to the
cruelest of men. Mariam is a harami, a bastard, who is rejected by both parents in different ways. She
finds herself forcing her father’s hand to be recognized as his daughter, only to have her move lead to
continued rejection, the suicide of her mother, and an unwanted marriage to Rasheed. She spends
twenty-seven years under his abuse until she finally kills him to save Laila. Laila has a better
childhood, even though her mother is chronically depressed over the deaths of her brothers. However,
war comes to roost at her door when a rocket kills her parents. The boy she had loved since
childhood, Tariq, had gotten her pregnant and believing he is dead, she marries Tariq and passes her
daughter off as his. Eventually, after a great deal of abuse and the return of Tariq who had never died,
Laila is nearly murdered by Rasheed until Mariam kills him. Mariam then is executed for this murder
while Laila, Tariq, and the children escape the country. Even though they make a happy life in Murree,
Laila wants to come home and honor the memory of her parents and Mariam by rebuilding the country
they loved.

Climax:
The climax occurs when Mariam murders Rasheed. After that the lives of the two women take very
different paths.

Outcome:
Mariam is arrested for murdering Rasheed and is excuted in the stadium in front of thousands of
people. Laila escapes Kabul and goes to Pakistan with Tariq and her children. She eventually returns,
first stopping in Herat to see the place where Mariam grew up, and then returning to Kabul to create a
better home and a new school for her children and the children of orphanage.

Major Themes:
The inner strength of women; the human capacity for evil; loyalty and devotion; and discrimination
against women.