| "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975..." (from the first line) From the Publisher:
An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from the final days of Afghanistan’s monarchy to the atrocities of the present.
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption. And it is also about the power of fathers over sons -- their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvasses of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject -- the devastating history of Afghanistan over the past thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut. Author Biography: Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, the son of a diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980. He lives in northern California, where he is a physician. The Kite Runner is his first novel.
Annotation:
This epic novel is set in Afghanistan, beginning in the days of the monarchy and reaching to the early 21st century. Amir is the son of a wealthy man; his best friend is Hassan, the son of his father's servant. Growing up in Kabul, the two share an idyllic childhood until a traumatic event--and Amir's act of cowardly betrayal--changes the nature of their friendship. Amir, who ends up in America, is tortured by his betrayal of Hassan, and he finds himself compelled to return, years later, to a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan to make amends. THE KITE RUNNER, written by an Afghani--now a physician--whose family found asylum in the U.S. in 1980--personalizes the conflicts in Afghanistan and the US involvement there. A debut novel, it was hailed by critics for its poetic prose and vivid characters.
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