A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini is is an Afghan-American novelist and physician who was born in Kabul, Afghanistan on March 4, 1965. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller. When Hosseini was a child, he read a great deal of Persian poetry as well as Persian translations of novels ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series. Hosseini's memories of peaceful pre-Soviet era Afghanistan, as well as his personal experiences with Afghan Hazaras, led to the writing of his first novel, The Kite Runner.

Like his beloved classic, The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns is also at once an incredible chronicle, of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love. It is a story of two Afghan women, Mariam and Laila, whose lives become entwined. The book was released by Riverhead Books on May 22, 2007, simultaneous with the Simon & Schuster audio book. The movie rights have been acquired by producer Scott Rudin and Columbia Pictures, so we can hope to see the screen version of this splendid book sometime soon.

Mariam and Laila are two women brought together by war, loss and fate. As they struggle to survive the ever increasing dangers around their lives at home as well as in the streets of Kabul, they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and motherly to each other. And that will ultimately alter the course their own lives and of their next generation. In this splendid book Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

A real master piece I enjoyed reading, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love. What makes this novel so stirring is the glimpses of daily life in Afghanistan - a country known to the world for only its news accounts of war, Taliban, Osama Bin Laden and terrorism.

I found it a compelling read and I recommend it to people who loves to read. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a splendid read indeed.