A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, following the huge success of his bestselling 2003 debut The Kite Runner. Mariam, an illegitimate teenager from Herat, is forced to marry a shoemaker from Kabul after a family tragedy. Laila, born a generation later, lives a relatively privileged life, but her life intersects with Mariam's when a similar tragedy forces her to accept a marriage proposal from Mariam's husband. Hosseini has remarked that he regards the novel as a "mother-daughter story" in contrast to The Kite …
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, following the huge success of his bestselling 2003 debut The Kite Runner. Mariam, an illegitimate teenager from Herat, is forced to marry a shoemaker from Kabul after a family tragedy. Laila, born a generation later, lives a relatively privileged life, but her life intersects with Mariam's when a similar tragedy forces her to accept a marriage proposal from Mariam's husband.
Hosseini has remarked that he regards the novel as a "mother-daughter story" in contrast to The Kite Runner, which he considers a "father-son story" and friendships between men. It continues some of the themes used in his previous work, such as familial dynamics, but instead focusing primarily on female characters and their roles in contemporary Afghan society.
A Thousand Splendid Suns was released on May 22, 2007, and received favorable widespread critical acclaim from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, and became a number one New York Times Best Seller for fifteen weeks following its release. During its first week on sale, it sold over one million copies. Columbia Pictures purchased film rights in 2007, and a theatrical adaptation of the book premiered on February 1, 2017, at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California.
Wow, yeah. This book is hard to read, because of the domestic abuse, but if you can stand it, it is also such a fascinating window into the last few decades of Afghanistan's history, powerful, full of tension. You will be rooting for these two women and looking forward to the liberation of Kabul as much as they did - will it be in time to save them? Even more poignant given that we have now gone back to the days of the Taliban. OK, don't despair, there are light moments! - one detail that sticks with me is when the Titanic craze hits Taliban-controlled Kabul - Titanic burkhas!
