A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns


A Thousand Splendid Suns (Unabridged)


A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afganistan'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 Afgan 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.

Hosseini, a Farsi-speaking Afghan, was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father was involved with the Afghanistan Foreign Ministry and his mother was a teacher at a girls high school in Kabul. In 1970, Hosseini and his family moved to Tehran, Iran, where his father worked for the Embassy of Afghanistan. In 1973, Hosseini's family returned to Kabul, and Hosseini's youngest brother was born in July of that year. Several months later, the former King of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, was ousted from power in a bloodless coup that was orchestrated by Zahir's cousin, Daoud Khan.

In 1976, Hosseini's father obtained a job in Paris and moved the family there. They chose not to return to Afghanistan because communists had seized power through a bloody coup. Instead, in 1980 they sought political asylum in the United States and made their residence in San Jose, California. Having left Afghanistan with only the clothes on their back, they were forced to subsist on welfare and food stamps for a brief period.

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 until a year and half after the release of The Kite Runner. As of 2007 he lives in San Jose. source