![]() As a doctor with an active practice and many patients, Hosseini struggled to find time to expand the story, so he wrote the novel piecemeal in the early morning hours. Hosseini published several stories before writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, which was based on an earlier short story of the same title. As of 2005, he is a practicing physician, specializing in internal medicine in Northern California. Hosseini received a biology degree in 1988 from Santa Clara University and a medical degree from the University of California, San Diego in 1993. Hosseini's parents, a former diplomat and a teacher, settled in San Jose, California, where they subsisted on welfare until his father, working odd jobs, managed to independently support the family. Hosseini and his family moved to Paris in 1976, then immigrated to the United States in 1980 as refugees with political asylum. ![]() Khaled Hosseini was born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan, the setting of much of the action in The Kite Runner. The action closes soon after the fall of the Taliban and alludes to the rise of Hamid Karzai as leader of a new Afghan government in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. The novel sets the interpersonal drama of the characters against the backdrop of the modern history of Afghanistan, sketching the political and economic toll of the instability of various regimes in Afghanistan from the end of the monarchy to the Soviet-backed government of the 1980s to the fundamentalist Taliban government of the 1990s. As the protagonist Amir grows to adulthood, he must come to terms with his past wrongs and adjust to a new culture after leaving Afghanistan for the United States. The Kite Runner, a coming-of-age novel, deals with the themes of identity, loyalty, courage, and deception. Amir's closest friend is his playmate and servant Hassan, a poor illiterate boy who is a member of the Hazara ethnic minority. The action of the story then moves backward in time to the narrator's early life in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he is the only child of a privileged merchant. The adult narrator, Amir, lives in San Francisco and is contemplating his past, thinking about a boyhood friend whom he has betrayed. The Kite Runner is the story of strained family relationships between a father and a son, and between two brothers, how they deal with guilt and forgiveness, and how they weather the political and social transformations of Afghanistan from the 1970s to 2001. The novel is set in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to 1981 and the start of the Soviet occupation, then in the Afghan community in Fremont, California from the 1980s to the early 2000s, and finally in contemporary Afghanistan during the Taliban regime. Initially published by Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin, The Kite Runner was said to be the first novel written in English by an Afghan writer, and the book appeared on many book club reading lists. ![]() The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was published in 2003. Despite its violent and corrupted past, Hosseini hopes for a redemption for his country someday.KHALED HOSSEINI 2003 INTRODUCTION AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY PLOT SUMMARY CHARACTERS THEMES STYLE HISTORICAL CONTEXT CRITICAL OVERVIEW CRITICISM SOURCES FURTHER READING INTRODUCTION Hosseini subtly connects these personal quests for redemption to Afghanistan itself. Amir is also able to find a kind of redemption in his bloody fight with Assef (Hassan’s rapist), and his adoption of Sohrab. This ultimately culminates in Amir’s return to Afghanistan and his attempts to save and adopt Hassan’s son Sohrab.Īfter Amir learns of Baba’s betrayal of Ali, Amir realizes that Baba was probably trying to redeem his adultery through his many charitable activities and strong principles in later life. ![]() After Hassan’s rape, Amir spends the rest of his life trying to redeem himself for his betrayal of his loyal friend. Throughout his childhood, Amir’s greatest struggle was to redeem himself to Baba for “killing” his mother during childbirth, and for growing up a disappointing son who was unlike Baba himself. The quest for redemption makes up much of the novel’s plot, and expands as a theme to include both the personal and the political. ![]()
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