One of my favorite reads in recent years was The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. So it was with interest that I read the starred review of his next novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. I can tell that, like The Kite Runner, this novel won’t be light reading, but I’m sure it will be a powerful one. I’ve already marked my calendar for its May release.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Afghan-American novelist Hosseini follows up his bestselling The Kite Runner
with another searing epic of Afghanistan in turmoil. The story covers
three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny
through the lives of two women. Mariam is the scorned illegitimate
daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the
40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to
produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife,
14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl whose only other options,
after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or
starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become
allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed, whose violent
misogyny—"There was no cursing, no screaming, no pleading, no surprised
yelps, only the systematic business of beating and being beaten"—is
endorsed by custom and law. Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced
portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly
dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male
children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a
powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical
evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters. (May)
-rlh-
