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– all this talk of I’m Tajik and you’re Pashtun and he’s Hazara and she’s Uzbek. We’re all Afghans, and that’s all that should matter”, Laila’s father tells her. How important is this ethnic diversity both in the novel and in what happens to Afghanistan throughout the thirty years the book spans?

• What is the significance of the novel’s title? Why do you think Hosseini chose it?

• What do you think of the novel’s ending?

• How would you describe Hosseini’s writing style? Were there particular passages that impressed you and if so what were they and why?

• How are the West and the Soviet Union portrayed in the novel? What part do they play in Afghanistan’s troubles?

• Hosseini is an expatriate Afghan. To what extent do you think this has influenced the writing of A Thousand Splendid Suns, and his portrayal of Afghanistan?

Resources

• www.khaledhosseini.com – Khaled Hosseini’s website

• www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?z=y&cid=1145572#interview – interview published on Barnes and Noble’s website

• www.afghanmagazine.com/2004_06/profile/khosseini.shtml – conversation with Farhad Ahzad published on afghanmagazine.com

• www.bloomsbury.com/Authors/microsite.asp?id=480§ion=1&aid=863 – conversation between Hosseini and Riverhead Books, his American publisher

•http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_ asia/1162108.stm – Afghanistan timeline published at the BBC’s website

Suggested further reading

Fiction

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A Married Woman by Manju Kapur

The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle

Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra

Non-fiction

The Sewing Circles of Herat by Christina Lamb The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

Other books by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and moved to the United States in 1980. His first novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, published in thirty-four countries. In 2006 he was named a US goodwill envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

He lives in Northern California.