What does the Cover Mean?

Author Khaled Hosseinni has chosen the most significant event to take place in his novel as the cover for The Kite Runner.  From this picture, the reader can see that Amir is watching something that is happening around a corner.    The reader does not know what it is.   In actual fact Amir sees that his best friend Hassan is being raped by a bully and he does not intervene.  This is a pivotal event that shapes the outcome of the novel and impacts the relationship between these two best friends.  One wonders what would have happened if he summed up the courage to stand up for Hassan?  Guilt and self- hatred develop and true happiness seems to evade him.

A Look At The Two Main Characters

Hassan (left), Amir (right) pictured in The Kite Runner movie (2007)

Amir- is the main character in the novel The Kite Runner.   As the story begins, Amir is an adult living in California.  He flashes back to his childhood growing up in Afghanistan as the only son of a rich businessman.  Amir is passionate about reading and writing stories even though his father does not approve of these activities as he wishes his son were more athletic like Hassan, the son of his servant.   Hassan and Amir become best friends and spend most of their time together.  The relationship becomes estranged when Hassan is raped and Amir who is there hidden away without anyone seeing him, does not come to his rescue.  He feels guilty for not intervening and avoids his friend and eventually tries to get Hassan and his father fired so he would not have to see them.  At 18 Amir and his father flee to the United States after the Soviets invade Afghanistan. He graduates high school in California and later attends University specializing in English. He marries Soraya but the couple cannot have children.  He writes novels for a living and lives in an expensive neighbourhood.  He eventually returns to Afghanistan to find out that Hassan was his half- brother and sets out to find his nephew who is now an orphan, to atone from his past sins.

Hassan- is Amir’s best childhood friend and later the reader learns he is also his half-brother.  This character is born with a harelip, which results in his father Baba giving him away to his servant Ali because he does not want the embarrassment of a less than perfect son.  People think that Hassan is a Hazara (a Middle Eastern race) and he is tormented by the other children.   As the son of a servant he has a very different lifestyle then his half- brother Amir who benefits from social class and wealth.  Hassan also has to deal with an obvious facial deformity, but in actual fact he is a character with incredible integrity and strong physical abilities.  He never lies and is known for being the best kite runner in the city.   It is ironic that both these qualities are valued highly by his real father and are not qualities that Amir possesses.  The turning point in the story is when Hassan is raped by Assef with Amir watching which causes the friendship to fall apart.   Hassan wonders why Amir is distancing himself from him and tries to repair the relationship without success. The reader later learns that Hassan is killed by the Taliban while trying to defend Baba’s old house.  He also has a son Sohrab who is now an orphan.

Map of Setting

A large portion of The Kite Runner take place in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Amir and his father immigrate to California when he is 18.

Setting

The Kite Runner begins in Afghanistan where the reader learns about the childhood experiences of the main character Amir.  These memories shape him to become the adult he is today. The experiences he remembers range from when he was a baby in the early 60's to the time he was a teenager. The setting is very important in this novel as the plot revolves around the culture, principles, and social classes of the Afghan people. The Soviet invasion also occurs within this time frame and Amir and his father are forced to immigrate to the United States. The memories of the main character shift to those of a teenager becoming a man. The pair must start a new life in San Francisco with almost nothing at all, after having everything they could possibly need and more in Afghanistan. Amir is young which allows him to transition into a new society while his father struggles to adapt as he lived in the Middle East for over 40 years.  

3 Articles

“An Old, Familiar Face: Writer Khaled Hosseini, Lifting the Veil on Afghanistan”

Washington Post May 28, 2007 based on an interview with Khaled Hosseini and Tamara Jones

This article claims that Khaled  Hosseini did not receive enough credit for his first book The Kite Runner. This novel “lifts the veil of Afghanistan” by describing the events that have occurred as well as the author’s personal memories of the turmoil in his native land. He also incorporates parts of Afghanistan’s history to provide historicism.  Hosseini had completed two thirds of the manuscript when 911 occurred.  He considered abandoning the book because he wondered whether Americans would be interested in Afghan society now that they were considered the “bad guys”.  His wife Roya, a lawyer challenged him to show a different face of his homeland and her arguments convinced him to complete the novel. Developing interest in a sensitive  story of two childhood friends growing up in an unpopular country at a time where post 911 distrust and anger exists has been a slow, difficult process.  The article describes the author going to a book signing where 80 people were expected and having only 4 show up.  The success of The Kite Runner seems to have been by word of mouth with one person reading the book and passing it on to another. Interest in another perspective on war torn Afghanistan has  developed around this well written novel. Now over 4 million copies worldwide have been sold and the novel published in 34 countries.

Link- http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=3&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Khaled+Hosseini

Wrenching Tale by an Afghan Immigrant Strikes a Chord

Author: Edward Wyatt

Khaled Hosseini’s novel is a success because readers can relate to the book which focuses on the friendship of two afghan boys Amir and Hassan.  One is the child of a wealthy rug exporter while the other is the son of their family servant.  Life in Afghanistan is described through the eyes of Amir and Hassan.  Ultimately betrayal occurs which has a lifelong impact on both boys as they grow up apart, one in war torn Kabul and the other in California. Edward Wyatt writes that the characters are believable and people find similarities with other historic periods of time.   Universal themes such as bullying, powerlessness and discrimination described in the novel are similar to what occurs in our society even today.  Also the violence of the Tailiban has been compared to Nazi Germany and South Africa.   To make the story believeable Hosseini’s rewrote the last 1/3 of the novel. Originally Amir married an American women and people found this to be unrealistic. The story was later changed so that the main character would marry an Afghan Immigrant. This book offers realism and the ability to relate to the readers which has resulted in The Kite Runner becoming a best seller with over 8 million copies sold worldwide.

Link-

http://find.galegroup.com/gps/retrieve.do?contentSet=GSRC&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&qrySerId=Locale(en,,):FQE%3D(ke,None,8)hosseini$&sgHitCountType=None&inPS=true&sort=Relevance&searchType=BasicSearchForm&tabID=T001&prodId=IPS&searchId=R1&currentPosition=3&userGroupName=ko_k12hs_d21&docId=EJ2181700647&docType=GSRC

Khaled Hosseini

Author: Laura Avery

Laura Avery writes a biographical essay on Khaled Hosseini .  She describes the author of The Kite Runner as being born on March 4, 1965 in Kabul Afghanistan.  Khaled was the first of five children, the son of an Afghan diplomat and his wife a high school teacher.   The family moved from Tehran Iraq to Kabul Afghanistan, and then Paris France as Khaled’s father was assigned to different locations as part of his job with his country’s foreign ministry.  In 1980, the family received political asylum in the United States , where Khaled eventually earns a medical degree from the University of California and becomes a practicing physician.  Laura Avery describes The Kite Runner as a tale of friendship and redemption. This atmosphere is created when Amir enters a kite fighting contest. He sends Hassan to run to get the last cut kite. Amir goes to look for him, and spies him crouching in an alley as he is taunted by other boys. Amir hides from the group, but witnesses the ringleader, a half-German neighbourhood bully Azef who rapes Hassan. Asef says that in time Afghanistan will eliminate the Hazara ethnic minority as Nazi Germany attempted to do with Europe's Jews.The novel is similar to the author’s life with the same timeline. Both immigrate to the US from Afghanistan and must rely on welfare to get by. The Kite Runner began as a short story and Hosseini was encouraged to make this into something great.

http://find.galegroup.com/gps/retrieve.do?contentSet=GBRC&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&qrySerId=Locale(en,,):FQE%3D(ke,None,15)khaled+hosseini$&sgHitCountType=None&inPS=true&sort=Relevance&searchType=BasicSearchForm&tabID=T001&prodId=IPS&searchId=R3&currentPosition=4&userGroupName=ko_k12hs_d21&docId=EK1618004721&docType=GBRC

About the Author

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Title: Kite Runner

2) I selected a book written by Khaled Hosseini because he seemed to have an interesting past living in the Middle East and many other countries. The Kite Runner is an international best seller with over 12 million copies sold worldwide.  This novel has been met with great critical acclaim and for this reason should be both interesting and suspenseful.  In addition, the class will be reading Hosseini’s second novel  A Thousand Splendid Suns later in the semester. I thought that by reading the Kite Runner first would give me an advantage.

3) Khaled Hosseini was born on March 4, 1965 in Kabul Afghanistan. He also lived in Iran and France for short periods of time as a child.  He later moved to the United States where he graduated from high school. The author then attended the University of California where he earned a degree in Biology. His first novel The Kite Runner was released in 2003 and became an international best seller.

4) In addition to the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini also wrote A Thousand Splendid Suns. This novel was published in 2007 and has since sold over 700,000 copies. The book follows a woman named Mariam who is the daughter of a rich man with three wives and many other children. Both of Hosseini’s novels take place in Afghanistan and around the same time period.

5) The author uses life experiences, history, and the culture of his home country to write The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion and his books take place in this same time period.  When Hosseini’s family lived in the Middle East he had a 30 year old servant.  In his novel The Kite Runner he seems to be basing the character Hassan on this man.   Both are servants and are of Hazara descent.  Khaled Hosseini taught his servant how to read and write which is significant because the poor cannot attend school to acquire these skills. In both relationships, the author and his servant and the two main characters in the Kite Runner share a passion for literature.

6) Khaled Hosseini has written only 2 novels. The setting of both books takes place in Afghanistan and the main characters are children of wealthy men. The author seems to be making statements about his country’s culture and the significant challenges faced by women and the poor.  Racism, class differences, sexism are some of the emerging themes.

7) The theme of most classic novels seem to involve an aspect of conflict, where the human condition is challenged in some way.  Authors use their characters, setting and plot to create suspense and drama.   For example the timeless book To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee is about racism and takes place in the United States during the early 1900’s. In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner the author also describes prejudice and betrayal as it occurs in Afghanistan in the 1970’s. Even though the settings and time frames are different, the reader experiences some of the conflict that existed as seen through the eyes of the main characters. This perspective on betrayal and racism as it exists in the Middle East is what will keep people reading this book for many years to come.

8) 3 Sources

"Khaled Hosseini Biography." BookBrowse.com

Web. 24 Feb. 2011.

<http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm/author_number/900/khaled-hosseini>.

"Khaled Hosseini." Web. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=1&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=hosseini>.

Jones, Tamera. ""An Old, Familiar Face: Writer Khaled Hosseini, Lifting the Veil on Afghanistan"" Web. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=3&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=hosseini>.

Blog Entry #2

Today, I read something that really stood out to me in the novel, The Kite Runner.   The main character Amir asks Hassan if he would eat dirt if he asked him to. Hassan says that he would and in turn asks if Amir would do the same.  He replies "Don't be stupid, Hassan. You know I wouldn't”(Hosseini 58).  Hassan already knew the answer  to this question and was testing Amir's integrity by seeing if his answer was truthful or not. This makes me question the relationship between these two characters.  Are they really friends or would Hassan eat the dirt because he is Amir's servant?  The differences between these two social classes both in behaviour and values are starting to emerge.