A Thousand Splendid Suns Review

Allison Luthy

Arts Journalism

2/25/08

Women’s Rights in Afghanistan Neglected

In his latest novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” Khaled Hosseini tackles the difficult issues of life in wartime Afghanistan, with clarity and poignancy. Where his previous book, “The Kite Runner,” focuses mainly on male relationships, a complex web of women’s relationships with each other drives the plot of “A Thousand Splendid Suns.”

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965, Hosseini moved to the United States in 1980 after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. He attended medical school in the United States and began writing his first novel, “The Kite Runner,” in 2001 after he had started practicing medicine.

“A Thousand Splendid Suns” is set in Hosseini’s birthplace, Kabul, during wartime Afghanistan. The main characters of the book, Mariam and Laila, are both women who are victims of the terrible circumstances they live in.

Forced to wear burqas in Afghanistan’s sweltering heat and beaten by the Taliban if they are caught outside by themselves, they become fast friends in order to endure the intolerance. The novel follows the progression of their relationship, protecting each other from their husband’s irrational hatred of them, who at one time forces Mariam to chew on a handful of pebbles until her teeth break because she undercooked his rice.

While writing “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” Hosseini picked the title from a Farsi poem about Kabul by Saeb-e-Tabrizi, a Persian poet. “One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,/Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”

Hosseini uses the same themes of guilt and betrayal in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” that he used in “The Kite Runner,” but creates a deeper connection with the characters by showing the psychological effects of what they have witnessed.

The characters are much more realistic because the reader understands their background, elucidating the audience as to why they might do seemingly hateful things. This solidarity with the characters that lacks strength in his previous works becomes overwhelmingly apparent through his vivid descriptions. Hosseini relates scenes, such as the one of Mariam being forced to chew pebbles with painful directness creating the sensations of her teeth cracking. “Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars.”

Since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, Afghanistan has ratified a new constitution, and allows women to vote or participate in elections as candidates. There are still millions of Afghan refugees trying to get resettled or leave Afghanistan. The United Nations Refugee Agency and Hosseini as one of the UNHCR’s US envoys are continuing to give aid to these victims of the war.

Like the political situation of Afghanistan, Hosseini’s writing is only improving with time. Released in May of 2007, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is still currently in the top five of the New York Times’ hardcover fiction bestseller list.