The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini (2003)
“A boy who watched his best friend be destroyed and said nothing. A man who spends two decades trying to undo one moment of cowardice.”
At a Glance
In 1970s Kabul, the privileged Amir watches his Hazara servant and best friend Hassan be raped by a bully named Assef — and does nothing. He then compounds his cowardice by framing Hassan for theft, driving him and his father Ali from their home. After the Soviet invasion, Amir and his father Baba flee to California. Two decades later, Rahim Khan calls from Pakistan: Hassan is dead, Hassan was actually Baba's son, and Hassan's boy Sohrab is trapped in Taliban Kabul with Assef. Amir returns to Afghanistan to rescue the child and finally, at enormous personal cost, redeem himself.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Published in 2003 as American attention turned to Afghanistan following 9/11, The Kite Runner gave millions of readers their first imaginative entry into Afghan culture, history, and humanity. It sold over 38 million copies worldwide — one of the best-selling debut novels in history. It was the first novel written in English by an Afghan author to reach global mass readership.
Diction Profile
Conversational warmth with occasional lyrical passages — Hosseini writes literary fiction in a vernacular voice
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