The timely and critically acclaimed debut novel that's becoming a word-of-mouth phenomenon. 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.

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And now it brings "The Kite Runner," a beautiful novel by Afghan-American Khaled Hosseini that ranks among the best-written and provocative stories of the year so far.

Hosseini's first novel -- and the first Afghan novel to be written originally in English -- "The Kite Runner" tells a heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between Amir, the son of a wealthy Afghan businessman, and Hassan, the son of his father's servant. Amir is Sunni; Hassan is Shi'a. One is born to a privileged class; the other to a loathed minority. One to a father of enormous presence; the other to a crippled man. One is a voracious reader; the other illiterate.

The poor Hassan is born with a hare lip, but Amir's gaps are better hidden, deep inside.

Yet Amir and Hassan live and play together, not simply as friends, but as brothers without mothers. Their intimate story traces across the expansive canvas of history, 40 years in Afghanistan's tragic evolution, like a kite under a gathering storm. The reader is blown from the last days of Kabul's monarchy -- salad days in which the boys lives' are occupied with school, welcome snows, American cowboy movies and neighborhood bullies -- into the atrocities of the Taliban, which turned the boys' green playing fields red with blood.

This unusually eloquent story is also about the fragile relationship fathers and sons, humans and their gods, men and their countries. Loyalty and blood are the ties that bind their stories into one of the most lyrical, moving and unexpected books of this year.

Hosseini's title refers to a traditional tournament for Afghan children in which kite-flyers compete by slicing through the strings of their opponents with their own razor-sharp, glass-encrusted strings. To be the child who wins the tournament by downing all the other kites -- and to be the "runner" who chases down the last losing kite as it flutters to earth -- is the greatest honor of all.

And in that metaphor of flyer and runner, Hosseini's story soars.

And fear not, gentle reader. This isn't a "foreign" book. Unlike Boris Pasternak's "Dr. Zhivago," Hosseini's narrative resonates with familiar rhythms and accessible ideas, all in prose that equals or exceeds the typical American story form. While exotic Afghan customs and Farsi words pop up occasionally, they are so well-defined for the reader that the book is enlightening and fascinating, not at all tedious.

Nor is it a dialectic on Islam. Amir's beloved father, Baba, is the son of a wise judge who enjoys his whiskey, television, and the perks of capitalism. A moderate in heart and mind, Hosseini has little good to say about Islamic extremism.

"The Kite Runner" is a song in a new key. Hosseini is an exhilaratingly original writer with a gift for irony and a gentle, perceptive heart. His canvas might be a place and time Americans are only beginning to understand, but he paints his art on the page, where it is intimate and poignant.

103 of 113 found the following review helpful:

Stunning, epic, extraordinary debut novelOct 09, 2003
By Peggy Vincent "author and reader"
I read 2-3 books a week, and this is without a doubt my favorite of this year. No, I'll go further: it's one of maybe 8-10 books I'd choose to take to a deserted isle. I've put The Kite Runner directly into the hands of perfect strangers in book stores and said, "Read this one."
In a nutshell, Amir, the son of a well-to-do Afghani , has a best friend, Hassan, who is the illiterate child of Amir's father's long-time servant. Both children are motherless. A horrific event, a secret kept, the loss of personal honor, and a lie come between the boys. From that rift, the story moves forward as Amir and his father emigrate to California, where Amir matures, marries, and becomes a successful writer, but is still plagued by those old sins and lies. Then comes a revelation of still one more long-held secret that sets Amir on a return trip to Afghanistan (now under the worst years of Taliban dominance) to rescue Hassan's child. Author Hosseini doesn't shy from one iota of unpleasantness, and the result is a book with a perfect narrative arc, a sterling story line, unforgettable characters, and and and and... I had the opportunity to meet the author very briefly (just to shake his hand and gush a bit about his extraordinary book) at Books by the Bay in San Francisco and am delighted to report that he is charming, approachable, and thoroughly engaging. He deserves all the accolades that are coming his way.
Buy The Kite Runner. Read it. Then go back to the store and buy 2 more signed 1st editions - one to keep as an investment and one to give to your best friend.
...what a fine book!

550 of 650 found the following review helpful:

Afghanistan, The Taliban, and Family LoveMay 21, 2004
By prisrob "pris,"
"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini is one of those marvelous books that opens up our hearts and minds. This book puts a name and face to the people we are helping to free. This is a book at once so magnificent,it is difficult to comprehend and describe. How could we be fighting for freedom in this far off land, Afghanistan, and not understand the people; their heritage, their land and what they lost?

This book transports us to a very different time in the 1960's. Amir and Hassan, friends, raised in the same household, but in different worlds. Amir is the son of a wealthy businessman, and Hassan is the son of the servant, Hazara. There may be a difference in the lives they led, but they became fast friends. Amir would learn to read and Hassan would not. Amir would have the most beautiful toys and particularly kites, and Hassan would be able to help Amir play with the toys and run (fly) his kite. Amir was the spolied son, Hassan was the intelligent and intuitive servant's son. Their lives would intertwine even when separated.

When the Russian army invaded, Amir and his father fled to the United States, California. Amir grew up in a different land, but with the same Afghanistan culture. He and his father became close. Amir married, went to college, all the while wondering what happened to his childhood friend, the one he betrayed.

As time marched on, Amir lost his father to cancer and was summoned to Pakistan to meet with an old family friend. This turns out to be a life renewing event. Amir searches for news of his friend, Hassan. The search takes him back to Afghanistan, to an orphanage, a meeting with a member of the Taliban, a search for his lost city and culture and for a prize he will cherish, for the truth and for the life he regains.

This is a gritty book, the beauty and violence of this country, Afghanistan, comes to life. The customs and food and smells of the city; the desolation of life and the loss of the country to madmen who are running it with only their imagined vulgar needs and wealth in mind that destroys a culture so varied and rich.
We can imagine we are there, and we can share in the sights, the smells, the utter disregard for human life. But we can never know what these people have lost. A book, I will cherish, so will you. prisrob

28 of 30 found the following review helpful:

It's a story of Paradise . . . lostAug 31, 2003
By Dennis Frampton "debonairbear"
This is a truly magnificent book! Without a doubt one of the very best stories I have ever read, not just because it is so beautifully written, but also because it is an important story. It takes place during the last thirty years of turbulent history in Afghanistan, and deals with a family and their love for each other and for their country. Author Khalid Hosseini no doubt has drawn heavily on his own life experiences to bring us this story. He was born to a wealthy family in Kabul Afghanistan and came to America as a political refugee in 1980. In The Kite Runner, Amir is the son of a prominent Pashtun family; his best friend, Hassan is the son of their servant man and a Hazara, a much hated ethnic minority. Despite their ethnic differences, Amir and Hassan are close friends throughout their childhood, both of them always mindful of Hassan's servant status. The two boys grow and learn, one of them privileged, the other deprived, both of them secure in the bosom of a prominent Pashtun family, both loved by the patriarch of that family, while the winds of change blew ceaselessly over the Afghan landscape. This story traces the lives of Amir and Baba his proud Father, and of Hassan and Ali his Father and faithful servant to Baba. In July of 1973, the people of Afghanistan woke to learn that while their King Zahir Shah was away in Italy, the Afghan monarchy had been ended in a bloodless coup led by the King's cousin Daoud Kahn. For a while there was peace in their lives but it was not to last. Before the end of that decade came first the Russians with soldiers, tanks and helicopter gun ships, and when they left, came the years of wanton destruction by the countless tribal war lords. This was to be ended, they thought mercifully, by the arrival of the Taliban, who at first brought order to the chaos, but later proved to be the most ruthless of killers. Amir and his Father left Afghanistan when the Russians arrived and came to America to settle in an Afghan community in San Francisco. However, the ties to their homeland and to the family they had left behind were to haunt them for years. One day, Amir received a telephone call from a friend in Pakistan and decided he must return. What he found there was a revelation of the awful changes which had been brought to his homeland and its people since his childhood. Don't buy this book because it is about that part of the world which changed our lives, don't buy it because it is a story about Muslims, don't even buy it because it is in a way a modern "Gone With The Wind" a story of a strong family in turbulent times. Buy it because it is a wonderful meaningful story, beautifully, sensitively written, by a man whose first language was not even our language, but who has mastered it as few of us have, and who has shown an unusual understanding of the workings of the human mind in times of great mental and physical stress.

22 of 23 found the following review helpful:

More of a response than a reviewSep 22, 2004
By D. Smith
In regards to the previous review, I appreciate that as an Afghani, you have a level of understanding that others may not have. But I think you are misguided on your review. I don't necessarily disagree with you when you mention the numerous plot twists that occur near the end of the novel... they seem overly dramatic and often quite unrealistic. But I think you judge far too harshly, taking into consideration that this is Hosseini's first novel. And I for one cannot stand David Foster Wallace, so I suppose that it may be a matter of taste.

What 'The Kite Runner' is to me is a novel that allows outsiders a glimpse of recent history of a nation that they knew very little about. The television images now of a burnt out, impoverished city that was, not long ago, a place of far greater happiness and tranquility. How often are we able to hear the voice of an Afghani telling us what they think of the present state of Afghanistan... the destruction caused by the Taliban, and the consequences of their rule. I merely knew what Pakistani friend told me in 1997, when we were in prep school together. It didn't mean much then, but I think of it now quite often. "The Taliban, man," he said, "They mean business. They are some mean bast****."

I suppose hearing those words from someone with perspective means something more than hearing it from a talking head on CBS or FOX news. I felt the same sort of authenticity from Hosseini's novel... a small story that dealt with a scenario much larger. And without the moving story that unfolded within the pages, would we really have cared to learn more about this subject? It takes the humanity we feel when we begin to care about individual characters to summon the empathy we need to care about an entire people.

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