A Thousand Splendid Suns

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Rating: ⭐ 5/5

Date Read: 2013/07/01

Pages: 420

Towards the end of Hosseini’s first book, The Kite Runner, Amir is driven through Kabul after spending many years in California. In a particularly poignant scene, Amir expresses shock at how Kabul has changed. In reply, the driver “pointed to an old man dressed in ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap pack filled with scrub grass tied to his back. ‘That’s the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. That’s the Afghanistan I know. You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.’” After reading The Kite Runner, I wanted to know more about the Afghanistan that was left behind, and the people who stayed.

A Thousand Splendid Suns tells that story, through the eyes of two women in Afghanistan. These are average women: not particularly rich, nor particularly poor. As women, they’re stuck: forced to stand by as they lose their rights, their agency, their opportunities. It’s a heartbreaking look at what life would be like if I had simply been born in another place.

I recommend this one, not because it’s a fun book, but because it’s devastating. Hosseini doesn’t make a difficult life hopeless, though. I’m reminded of the line from The Great Gatsby, “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
”Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” As I look around my (relatively palatial) one bedroom apartment, and think about my education, and my independence, and the fact that I’ve never been hungry, I feel truly grateful for my advantages. I hope that, someday, women in Afghanistan will be able to feel the same.