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The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
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About This Book
ISBN13: 9781594480003 |
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Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvases of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject-the devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvases of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject-the devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.
Review:
"Hosseini's book is more than a typical coming-of-age story. Rather it is about personal salvation, betrayal, and redemption." Albuquerque Journal
Review:
"Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing spectacle of hard-won personal salvation. All this, and a rich slice of Afghan culture too: irresistible." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"Brilliant...both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives." Publishers Weekly, starred review
Review:
"A wonderful work.... This is one of those unforgettable stories that stay with you for years. All the great themes of literature and of life are the fabric of this extraordinary novel: love, honor, guilt, fear redemption.... It is so powerful that for a long time everything I read after seemed bland." Isabel Allende
Review:
"In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence — forces that continue to threaten them even today." New York Times
Review:
"A haunting morality tale." USA Today
Review:
"His passionate story of betrayal and redemption is framed by Afghanistan's tragic recent past.... Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing spectacle of hard-won personal salvation. All this, and a rich slice of Afghan culture too: irresistible." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"Like Gone with the Wind, this extraordinary first novel locates the personal struggles of everyday people in the terrible sweep of history." People
Review:
"To many Western readers, [Afghanistan's] can be an exhausting and bewildering history. But Hosseini extrudes it into an intimate account of family and friendship, betrayal and salvation that requires no atlas or translation to engage and enlighten us." Washington Post
Review:
"A beautiful novel...a song in a new key. Hosseini is an exhilaratingly original writer with a gift for irony and a gentle, perceptive heart...one of the most lyrical, moving and unexpected novels of the year." Denver Post
Review:
"By page seven...I was sold, and hoped only that the book would continue to hold me in the same embrace. And embrace it does — or better said, encompass. Hosseini does tenderness and terror, California dream and Kabul nightmare with equal aplomb." The Globe and Mail
Review:
"[A] passionate story about guilt, honour and forgiveness, enlivened both by its capacity to offer a valuable insider's view into a country much in the news, and by its wisdom about how life is all about the choices we make." Literary Review
Synopsis:
Privileged young narrator Amir comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy in Afghanistan, then must endure revolution, invasion and a country's long struggle to triumph over violent forces.
About the Author
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, the son of a diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980. The Kite Runner is his first novel.
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 16 comments:
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mykaaaa, March 6, 2008 (view all comments by mykaaaa)
This book has been amazing. It shows such a great emotional connection. Hosseini is such a great writer and he deserves great success. I love it so far and can't wait to see the movie.
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smacn27076, January 11, 2008 (view all comments by smacn27076)
I enjoyed this book for Hosseini's skill with language and his gift for telling a good story. We are given a perspective on life in Afghanistan that is much more approachable than what we've seen in the news over the last few years, and a much more digestible perspective on how the Taliban came to the country and what it's done to the people who've lived through its occupation.
I will acknowledge that there are many coincidences that seem to resolve some of the plot elements a little too conveniently, and the final solution to Sohrab's dilemma is just a little too neatly crafted, but overall the story is well-written and satisfying at its end.
I suspect that its film version will be well-regarded, but having read this novel, there is no reason for me to see the movie. Hossein's narrative style is extremely visual, and this novel reads cinematically. If the film omits anything from the novel, the story will be diminished, and there is nothing to add that will improve it. A violent act performed on a child is a central event in the story, and I would anticipate that a big screen portrayal of that event will be disturbing regardless of how it is presented.
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saturnineinch, December 9, 2007 (view all comments by saturnineinch)
Brutal, moving portrait of guilt and redemption. Pummels the reader with tragedy after tragedy, but ends on a note of hope. As the tagline of the new film adaptation reads: "There is a way to be good again."
View all 16 comments
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9781594480003
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Riverhead Books
- Author:
- Other:
- Hosseini, Khaled
- Subject:
- General
- Copyright:
- 2003
- Edition Description:
- Riverhead Trade
- Publication Date:
- January 2003
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 384
- Dimensions:
- 8.19x5.06x1.01 in. .71 lbs.
