A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Summary
A Thousand
Splendid Suns is 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.
Born a
generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam
and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate.
As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them—in their home as well as
in the streets of Kabul—they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and
mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not
just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power
and suspense, 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.
“Hosseini’s
writing makes our hearts ache, our stomachs clench, and our emotions reel… [He]
tells the saddest of stories in achingly beautiful prose through stunningly heroic
characters whose spirits somehow grasp the dimmest rays of hope.” – USA Today
Biography
Khaled Hosseini
was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat in the
Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and history at a high
school in Kabul. In 1976, the Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to
Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then their homeland
had witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet Army. The
Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States, and in
September 1980 moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated from high
school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he earned a
bachelor’s degree in biology in 1988. The following year he entered the
University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, where he earned a
medical degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai medical
center in Los Angeles and was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004.
In May 2007, his
second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, debuted at #1 on the New York
Times bestseller list, remaining in that spot for fifteen weeks and nearly
an entire year on the bestseller list. Together, the two books have sold more
than 10 million copies in the United States and more than 38 million copies
worldwide.
In 2006,
Hosseini was named a Goodwill Envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee
Agency. Inspired by a trip he made to Afghanistan with the UNHCR, he later
established The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a 501(c)(3)
nonprofit, which provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
Rationale
This book is
absolutely heartbreaking. It’s a book that you hate reading in the moment, but
look back on once it’s over and realize how much you loved it in all of it’s
heartbreak. Because this book follows the political upheaval in Afghanistan,
students will learn a great deal about Afghanistan’s history from the late
1960’s to early 2000’s. The book has two main characters; both are female. This
book presents a rich story portraying two extremely strong, resilient women
growing up a generation apart in a world where women have little to no rights.
While this book was not written to be political or feminist, it is a great book
for students to read that show how strong women are even when they are faced
with oppression. Even though Hosseini is a male author, he really does the
women in the book justice with an accurate portrayal of the inequalities they
face.
Teaching Ideas
(Grades 11-12):
- Hosseini tells one story from two different character’s perspectives by alternating between them throughout the 4-part story. Students could analyze the author’s choice in doing this and examine the impact this has on the book and how it would be different if he had only focused on only one character.
- There are great teaching points with the themes in this book. Freedom and traditions/gender roles are two strong themes in the book that would create great class discussions and a great way for students to think about how these themes impact life not only in Afghanistan but also in America and their own lives. The theme of freedom can be looked at through an individual’s freedom or the freedom of society.
- Because the story’s time period, this book would be great to pair with a history unit. It would be eye opening to have students do a project on what life was like for women, and men, during the same exact time period in America and compare.
Obstacles
There are
numerous obstacles in this book. First of all, because of the time period this
book is set in, war surrounds the plot. There are descriptive, violent,
war-related portions of this book that might be hard for students to handle.
There is also a great deal of horrific abuse that women endure throughout the
story. Rape and suicide are present in the book as well. All of these obstacles
could be something the students or the parents may be against. Students may
struggle with the violence and injustices the women face, and parents may not
want their students to be reading something so graphic. As far as the
administration goes, I could see some resistant because of the large amount of
violence and abuse this book contains. However, I think the administration
would see that through all of the graphic parts of the story, there is rich
history being presented in the book and a first-hand look at another culture.
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