The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini [1]
‘Told in a cool, detached voice that provides a counterpoint to the growing sense of tension which is frequently stretched to breaking point as the story unfolds’ Times Literary Supplement
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A Thousand Splendid Suns
THE KITE RUNNER
Khaled Hosseini
BLOOMSBURY
First published in Great Britain 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Khaled Hosseini
This electronic edition published 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
The right of Khaled Hosseini to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4088-0372-1
www.bloomsbury.com/khaledhosseini
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Contents
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY- ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY- TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY- THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY- FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY- FIVE
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 best seller, published in thirty-four countries. His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns , was a number one bestseller and was published in May 2007. In 2006 he was named a goodwill envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency. He lives in northern California.
This book is dedicated
to Haris and Farah,
both the noor of my eyes,
and to the children of Afghanistan.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to the following colleagues for their advice, assistance, or support: Dr. Alfred Lerner, Dori Vakis, Robin Heck, Dr. Todd Dray, Dr. Robert Tull, and Dr. Sandy Chun. Thanks also to Lynette Parker of East San Jose Community Law Center for her advice about adoption procedures, and to Mr. Daoud Wahab for sharing his experiences in Afghanistan with me. I am grateful to my dear friend Tamim Ansary for his guidance and support and to the gang at the San Francisco Writers Workshop for their feedback and encouragement. I want to thank my father, my oldest friend and the inspiration for all that is noble in Baba; my mother who prayed for me and did nazr at every stage of this book’s writing; my aunt for buying me books when I was young. Thanks go out to Ali, Sandy, Daoud, Walid, Raya, Shalla, Zahra, Rob, and Kader for reading my stories. I want to thank Dr. and Mrs. Kayoumy—my other parents—for their warmth and unwavering support.
I must thank my agent and friend, Elaine Koster, for her wisdom, patience, and gracious ways, as well as Cindy Spiegel, my keen-eyed and judicious editor who helped me unlock so many doors in this tale. And I would like to thank Susan Petersen Kennedy for taking a chance on this book and the hardworking staff at Riverhead for laboring over it.
Last, I don’t know how to thank my lovely wife, Roya—to whose opinion I am addicted—for her kindness and grace, and for reading, rereading, and helping me edit every single draft of this