（Khaled Hosseini）,Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-born American novelist and physician.After graduating from college, he worked as a doctor in California, an occupation that he likens to “an arranged marriage“ for him. He has published three novels, most notably his 2003 debut The Kite Runner, following the success of The Kite Runner, he decided to become a full-time writer.,（Khaled Hosseini）,About the author,His father worked as a diplomat, and when he was 11 years old, the family moved to France; four years later, they applied for asylum in the United States, where he later became a citizen. Hosseini did not return to Afghanistan until 2003 at the age of 38, where he “felt like a tourist in his own country“. In interviews about the experience, he admitted to sometimes feeling survivors guilt for having been able to leave the country before the Soviet invasion and subsequent wars.,About the author,All three of his novels became bestsellers, with The Kite Runner spending 101 weeks on the bestseller list as a paperback.In 2007, The Kite Runner was followed by A Thousand Splendid Suns, which has spent 21 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list and 49 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction . The two novels have sold more than 38 million copies internationally.,About the author,The novel centers around the friendship between Mariam and Laila. It is split into four parts, with a focus on Mariam in the first part, continuing with Laila in the second, the relationship between the two women in the third part and Lailas life with Tariq in part four, which is also the only part written in the present tense.,Summary,Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry the troubled and bitter Rasheed, who is thirty years her senior. Nearly two decades later, in a climate of growing unrest, tragedy strikes fifteen-year-old Laila, who must leave her home and join Mariams unhappy household. Laila and Mariam are to find consolation in each other, their friendship to grow as deep as the bond between sisters, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter.,Summary,With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life is a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the womens endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction.,Summary,Creation,“I hope the book offers emotional subtext to the image of the burqa-clad woman walking down a dusty street in Kabul.“ Khaled Hosseini in a 2007 interview.,Title The title of the book comes from a line in the Josephine Davis translation of the poem “Kabul“.,Khaled Hosseini replied: A Thousand Splendid Suns can be seen as a mother-daughter story. He ultimately considered the novels to be “love stories“ in that it is love that “draws characters out of their isolation, that gives them the strength to transcend their own limitations, to expose their vulnerabilities, and to perform devastating acts of self-sacrifice“.,Themes,Family,Women in Afghanistan Hosseini visited Afghanistan in 2003 and “heard so many stories about what happened to women, the tragedies that they had endured, the difficulties, the gender-based violence, the discrimination, the being barred from active life,being banned from practicing their legal rights“. This motivated him to write a novel centered on two Afghan women. “Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a mans accusing finger always finds a woman. “ -A passage in which Mariams mother states.,Themes,Afghanistan is a country I knew little. There are tragedies in A Thousand Splendid Suns heart-breaking tragedy yet the story is ultimately an inspirational epic with the power to enlighten us spiritually as well as historically. When l read this novel, I was moved by the sad fact that the novel has been many a poor Afghan womans reality. This eye-opening read has the power to change my view of the world and my place in it, and that makes it a truly masterful piece of literature.,My thoughts,