The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
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eNotes: Table of Contents
1. The Kite Runner: Introduction
2. The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini Biography
3. The Kite Runner: Summary
4. The Kite Runner: Summary and Analysis
♦ Chapter 1
♦ Chapter 2
♦ Chapter 3
♦ Chapter 4
♦ Chapter 5
♦ Chapter 6
♦ Chapter 7
♦ Chapter 8
♦ Chapter 9
♦ Chapter 10
♦ Chapter 11
♦ Chapter 12
♦ Chapter 13
♦ Chapter 14
♦ Chapter 15
♦ Chapter 16
♦ Chapter 17
♦ Chapter 18
♦ Chapter 19
♦ Chapter 20
♦ Chapter 21
♦ Chapter 22
♦ Chapter 23
The Kite Runner
1
♦ Chapter 24
♦ Chapter 25
5. The Kite Runner: Characters
6. The Kite Runner: Essential Passages
♦ Essential Passages by Character: Amir
♦ Essential Passages by Theme: Friendship
7. The Kite Runner: Themes
8. The Kite Runner: Style
9. The Kite Runner: Historical Context
10. The Kite Runner: Critical Overview
11. The Kite Runner: Criticism
♦ Maria Elena Caballero-Robb
♦ James O'Brien
♦ Ronny Noor
♦ Khaled Hosseini
12. The Kite Runner: Topics for Further Study
13. The Kite Runner: Media Adaptations
14. The Kite Runner: What Do I Read Next?
15. The Kite Runner: Bibliography and Further Reading
16. Copyright
The Kite Runner: Introduction
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was published in 2003. Initially published by Riverhead Books, an
imprint of Penguin, The Kite Runner was said to be the first novel written in English by an Afghan writer, and
the book appeared on many book club reading lists. The novel is set in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to
1981 and the start of the Soviet occupation, then in the Afghan community in Fremont, California from the
1980s to the early 2000s, and finally in contemporary Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
The Kite Runner is the story of strained family relationships between a father and a son, and between two
brothers, how they deal with guilt and forgiveness, and how they weather the political and social
transformations of Afghanistan from the 1970s to 2001. The Kite Runner opens in 2001. The adult narrator,
Amir, lives in San Francisco and is contemplating his past, thinking about a boyhood friend whom he has
betrayed. The action of the story then moves backward in time to the narrator's early life in Kabul,
Afghanistan, where he is the only child of a privileged merchant. Amir's closest friend is his playmate and
servant Hassan, a poor illiterate boy who is a member of the Hazara ethnic minority. The Kite Runner, a
coming-of-age novel, deals with the themes of identity, loyalty, courage, and deception. As the protagonist
Amir grows to adulthood, he must come to terms with his past wrongs and adjust to a new culture after
leaving Afghanistan for the United States.
The novel sets the interpersonal drama of the characters against the backdrop of the modern history of
Afghanistan, sketching the political and economic toll of the instability of various regimes in Afghanistan;
from the end of the monarchy to the Soviet-backed government of the 1980s to the fundamentalist Taliban
government of the 1990s. The action closes soon after the fall of the Taliban and alludes to the rise of Hamid
Karzai as leader of a new Afghan government in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.
The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini Biography
Khaled Hosseini was born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan, the setting of much of the action in The Kite
Runner. Hosseini and his family moved to Paris in 1976, then immigrated to the United States in 1980 as
eNotes: Table of Contents
2
refugees with political asylum. Hosseini's parents, a former diplomat and a teacher, settled in San Jose,
California, where they subsisted on welfare until his father, working odd jobs, managed to independently
support the family. Hosseini received a biology degree in 1988 from Santa Clara University and a medical
degree from the University of California, San Diego in 1993. As of 2005, he is a practicing physician,
specializing in internal medicine in Northern California.
Hosseini published several stories before writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, which was based on an
earlier short story of the same title. As a doctor with an active practice and many patients, Hosseini struggled
to find time to expand the story, so he wrote the novel piecemeal in the early morning hours. Hosseini
contends that treating patients made him a keen observer of people and the ways they express themselves,
both verbally and nonverbally.
In 2004, Hosseini was selected by the Young Adult Library Services Association to receive an Alex Award,
an honor given to the authors of the ten best adult books for teenagers published in the previous year. Also in
2004, he was given the Original Voices award by the Borders Group, and The Kite Runner was nominated for
a Pushcart Prize.
His next novel, entitled Dreaming in Titanic City, is slated for publication in 2006.
The Kite Runner: Summary
Chapters 1-5
The Kite Runner opens in December 2001. The narrator, Amir, meditates on the past, recalling a walk in San
Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and alludes to a more distant moment of crisis in 1976. The narrator considers
the way that the past has a way of returning despite one's efforts to forget it. He mentions the names of several
characters slated to appear in later chapters. After this opening, the novel uses a flashback, a device through
which the narrator tells about events that happened before the present action of the story. This flashback lasts
for many chapters, returning the reader, near the end of the novel, to 2001, the time in which the first chapter
is set. The first five chapters sketch the details of Amir's childhood in Kabul, his daily life with his friend and
servant Hassan in his father's large house, and his burgeoning interest in literature. Hassan and his father live
on Amir's father's property in a separate servant's house. They are members of a minority ethnic group in
Afghanistan known as the Hazara. Victims of casual discrimination by the privileged classes, the Hazara in
The Kite Runner are derided for their appearance and generally live as second-class citizens. However, Hassan
and his father Ali, servants in Baba's household, are treated fairly well as members of the family. Ali has
known Baba for decades and Hassan and Amir, despite their differences in ethnicity and status, are constant
playmates.
As if to further emphasize the differences between them, Hassan has a birth defect, a harelip, which gives him
the appearance of constantly smiling. The reader sees the relationship between the young Amir and Hassan in
several crucial scenes. The most important of these depicts an encounter between the two friends and a group
of older bullies led by Assef, a half-German, half-Afghan boy who accuses Amir of being a traitor to the
Pashtun ethnicity by playing with a Hazara boy. While Amir is paralyzed with fear, Hassan ignores the racist
insults and drives the bullies away by threatening them with his slingshot. Assef and his minions retreat, but
not before Assef threatens revenge.
The novel details the increasingly turbulent political developments in Afghanistan. As Amir and Hassan grow
up, dreaming of being Rostan and Sohrab, the heroes of the Afghan heroic legend the Shahnammah, the
events of history invade their world of stories and play. Amir and Hassan get a taste of how politics can affect
daily life when they hear gunfire in the streets. Although Ali tells the boys that it is only the sound of
The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini Biography
3
fireworks, these sounds foreshadow, or look ahead to, the overthrow of the monarchy by a military coup.
Meanwhile, Amir and Hassan continue to play together, but Amir often feels jealous of the attention that
Hassan receives from Baba, who treats Hassan less like a servant than like a family member. Indeed, for
Hassan's birthday, Baba pays a surgeon to perform an operation to correct his harelip. As Hassan is healing
from his surgery, Amir sees him gingerly smile with his new mouth, an observation that foreshadows tragic
events to come.
Chapters 6-7
The narrator meditates on the fun times Amir and Hassan enjoy during the wintertime and describes the
events leading up to the 1975 kite tournament in Kabul. Amir describes the annual kite festival, the strategy of
kite-fighting, and the importance of "kite runners" like Hassan, who retrieve the kites cut down by the
razor-sharp strings of victorious kites as the surviving competitors become fewer and fewer. These detailed
descriptions of the practice and strategies of kite-fighting and kite-running lead into a flashback that
showcases Hassan's uncanny talent at running down fallen kites. Encouraged by his father, Amir decides to
compete seriously in the kite-fighting competition, in part because he genuinely enjoys the sport, but mostly
because he hopes to earn his father's admiration by winning the tournament.
On the morning of the kite tournament, Hassan relates a strange dream he has had in which he and Amir swim
out into Ghargha Lake, which is said to be inhabited by a terrible monster. In this dream they swim out and
return unharmed, despite the dozens of onlookers on the shore warning them to return. Although Amir,
irritable from a restless night's sleep, dismisses the dream, it proves prophetic. The narration shows the reader
the excitement and festivity of the streets on the day of the kite tournament as well as the seriousness of the
competitors. Amir's extreme nervousness is compounded by the knowledge that his father is finally supporting
him and plans to watch the tournament from his rooftop. Tensions between father and son are so strained that
Amir actually wonders whether, if he loses, his father might take pleasure in his defeat. Nevertheless, Amir
performs admirably, making many impressive tactical maneuvers until his and another kite are the only two
remaining. Amir cuts the last kite out of the sky and sees his father on the roof cheering for him. He also
shares the moment of victory with Hassan, who promises to run after the last defeated kite. Hassan is eager to
help his friend by retrieving the prize: "For you a thousand times over!" Hassan finds the fallen kite, but is
chased by some other boys. Amir follows some noises to an alley off the bazaar where, undetected himself, he
discovers a horrific scene: Assef, Kamal, and Wali threaten to take the kite from Hassan; Hassan, unable to
fight them off, is raped by Assef while Assef's friends hold him down. Rather than step in and fight Hassan's
attackers, Amir freezes, remains hidden, and eventually runs away in fear. After the rape, Hassan finds Amir
in the street and they return home with the kite without discussing the attack at all, although Hassan is visibly
distraught. Amir returns home to a hero's welcome from his father and his father's friends.
Chapters 8-9
Hassan becomes extremely remote, performing his household duties invisibly and avoiding Amir entirely.
Neither Amir nor Hassan reveal to Baba what has happened; Amir tries to avoid thinking of his failure to
protect his friend. Against the backdrop of this guilt, Amir takes advantage of the opportunity to enjoy his
father's company, now that his father is publicly and unreservedly proud of his accomplishment in the kite
tournament. Still, Amir harbors some jealousy when Baba expresses concern for Hassan after noticing that the
other boy is withdrawn. Ali reports that Hassan has been ill. Amir's newfound closeness with his father proves
tenuous when Amir, unable to face his guilt about Hassan, suggests that Baba look for new servants to replace
Ali and Hassan. Baba angrily rejects the suggestion, insisting that they are not just servants but part of the
family. Baba throws a massive celebration in honor of Amir's thirteenth birthday in the summer of 1976,
during which Amir is forced to exchange pleasantries with Assef, who comes to the party accompanied by his
parents and bearing a peculiar gift: a biography of Hitler. Unable to bear the festivities, Amir retreats to a
Chapters 1-5
4
quiet place where Rahim Khan finds him, talks to him, and gives him a special gift—a notebook in which to
write his stories.
After the party, Amir's room is piled with unsolicited tributes of both gifts and cash. Overwhelmed with gifts
and praise and haunted by guilt, he takes some of the money and a brand new watch and plants them in
Hassan's bed. Unable to bear the false implication that Hassan has stolen from Amir and Baba, Ali and Hassan
leave the house in Kabul. While Amir is aware that he is causing great pain to others, including his father who
seems devastated by their departure, he does nothing to correct the falsehood he created.
Chapters 10-13
Taking place six years later, these chapters begin with the traumatic political transition to the Soviet-backed
Communist regime of Afghanistan during the 1980s and explain Amir and Baba's declining fortunes under the
new order. In 1981, Amir and his father are compelled to leave everything behind and flee the country for
Peshawar, Pakistan inside the tank of a fuel truck, with dozens of other refugees. During this escape, Baba
again demonstrates the fearlessness for which he is admired by risking his life to save a woman from rape by a
Russian soldier at a checkpoint.
After a sojourn in Pakistan, Amir and his father go to Fremont, California, an area where many other Afghan
immigrants have settled. There they have a modest life, living in small apartments. Baba works, Amir studies,
and they go to the Saturday flea market to sell their wares alongside other Afghan immigrants. Baba, unable to
adjust to life in the United States, works at a gas station so that Amir can go to school and enter college.
Meanwhile, Amir helps to smooth over his father's conflicts with American culture and enjoys his remoteness
from a painful past. He falls in love with a young Afghan woman named Soraya Taheri, whom he gets to
know at the Saturday swap meets. He asks Baba to "go khastegari" for him, to ask Soraya's father for her hand
in marriage. Meanwhile, Baba, a lifelong smoker, is diagnosed with cancer. Turning down chemotherapy and
radiation, he forbids Amir to speak of his illness. Though his cancer has spread alarmingly, he helps Amir
perform the traditional Afghan courtship and engagement ceremonies. When Soraya and her father agree to
the union, the couple forgoes the traditional long engagement period, knowing that Baba does not have long to
live. Baba dies one month after they are married. Amir becomes acquainted with his wife's family and learns
of disagreements between Soraya and her father, particularly relating to the double standards of Afghan
gender politics. Amir and Soraya move to a new apartment. Amir works on his writing while Soraya studies
to become a teacher. In 1989, just after the Soviets leave Afghanistan, Amir publishes his first novel, a story
of a father and son in Kabul. The couple's happiness is spoiled only by their discovery that they cannot
conceive a child.
Chapters 14-16
Amir and Soraya buy a house in San Francisco. In 2001, Amir gets a call from Baba's old friend Rahim Khan,
who is ill and living in Pakistan. Disturbed by memories of the past he has tried to forget, Amir plans his trip
to Pakistan to see him. He considers Rahim Khan's suggestion that by coming to Pakistan he may have a
chance to redeem himself. Arriving in Peshawar, Amir goes immediately to the shabby room where a frail and
sickly Rahim Khan is staying in the city's Afghan Town. In his account of the current state of affairs in
Afghanistan, Rahim Khan describes the violence and factionalism of the Northern Alliance rule from 1992
until 1996. He explains how Afghans saw the 1996 takeover by the Taliban as a harbinger of peace and order,
little knowing the repression the Taliban would bring. Rahim Khan tells Amir that he is dying and tells him
that Hassan, Amir's boyhood friend and servant, lived with him in Kabul in Baba's old house.
Told from the point of view of Rahim Khan—the only chapter not from Amir's point of view—Chapter 16 is
another extended flashback that recounts Rahim Khan's life in Kabul after Amir and Baba went into exile.
Chapters 8-9
5
Living by himself in Baba's house, Rahim Khan becomes lonely, as more and more of his friends flee the
country. In the late 1980s, during the era of the Soviet-backed government, Rahim Khan goes to a small
village in Hazajarat to seek out Hassan and to ask him to bring his young wife Farzana back to Kabul to live
with him and to help take care of the house. Hassan agrees to the arrangement, settling with Farzana in the old
servants'house of his boyhood. Hassan's long-lost mother Sanaubar, who ran away in 1964, reappears, abused
and starving. After nursing Sanaubar back to relative health, Hassan and Farzana have a baby boy whom they
name Sohrab after the Afghan heroic tale of Rostam and Sohrab. In 1995, when Sohrab is four years old,
Sanaubar dies. During the infighting and instability of the Northern Alliance period, when Kabul is sectioned
off and ruled by competing groups, the little family nevertheless maintains a peaceful haven amid the chaos.
Young Sohrab learns to read and attends the winter kite tournament with his father Hassan. The 1996 Taliban
takeover leads to repression and violence: the Taliban bans Kabul's traditional kite tournament and massacres
the Hazara population of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Chapters 17-24
Following Rahim Khan's first-person account, he hands Amir a letter from Hassan and a photograph of
Hassan as a young man. After reading it, Amir learns that Hassan and his wife have been executed by the
Taliban. The fate of their young son Sohrab is unknown. Furthermore, Rahim Khan reveals, Hassan is not
only Amir's former servant and friend, but his half brother, the offspring of Amir's father and Hassan's mother
Sanaubar. Stunned by these revelations, Amir thinks about his father's decades-long deception and tries to
absorb the fact that Hassan was his brother all along. Though initially overcome by fear, Amir decides to
travel to Afghanistan to rescue Hassan's son Sohrab.
Car sick and feeling estranged from the country of his childhood, Amir re-enters Afghanistan, led by his
tough-talking guide and driver, Farid. Armed with Afghani currency and a picture of Sohrab and Hassan,
Amir also wears a false beard to shield him from the Taliban's prying eyes. Farid, suspicious of his apparently
pampered "American" passenger, updates Amir about the current state of affairs in his home country and
awakens Amir to the fact that his class privilege has always shielded him from the reality of life as
experienced by most Afghans. Despite Farid's initial suspicion of Amir's motives, he decides to help Amir
find and rescue Sohrab. Farid drives Amir from Jalalabad, past villages destroyed by the Taliban to the city of
Kabul, which, Farid informs him, is much changed. Despite this warning, Amir is shocked when they enter
the city and see the signs of destruction and poverty everywhere. Amir has a frightening close encounter with
the Taliban who roam the streets in pickup trucks looking for violations of the strict Shari'a law. A beggar
who was a former university professor tells Amir the location of the orphanage where he hopes to find
Sohrab. From Zaman, a beleaguered orphanage director, Amir and Farid learn that Sohrab has been taken
away by a powerful Taliban official who is most likely sexually abusing the boy. Zaman tells them they can
find the official at a soccer exhibition. Farid and Amir go to the soccer stadium, where, with the rest of the
crowd, they witness a double execution by stoning. Following Shari'a law, the Taliban have sentenced a man
and a woman to death for adultery. Before Amir's horrified gaze, a tall charismatic man in white robes
appears, raising his arms in response to the roaring crowd, and personally stones the offenders to death. The
Taliban official who throws the stones turns out to be the man the orphanage director described. Frightened
and disgusted by what they have just seen, Amir and Farid nevertheless arrange to visit this official.
At the official's compound, Amir discovers that the high-ranking Talib is none other than Assef, Hassan's
attacker from decades before. Assef behaves erratically, and Amir observes the marks of a heroin addiction on
his arms. Assef boasts about his participation in the 1998 massacre of Hazara people in Mazar-e-Sharif,
announcing that the violence was ordained by God. Assef calls Sohrab into the room to meet Amir, and tells
Amir he remembers him from their childhood in Kabul. Assef forces Sohrab, who is costumed like a dancing
girl, to perform for Amir and his guards. Amir confronts Assef, demanding that he turn over Sohrab. Assef
sends his guards out of the room and challenges Amir to fight for the right to take Sohrab away. A long,
Chapters 14-16
6
violent fight between Amir and Assef ends when Sohrab uses his slingshot to blind Assef. Amir and Sohrab
manage to escape in Farid's waiting car. Amir's injuries from the battle are so grave that he passes out and
remains unconscious for two days. He awakens in a hospital in Pakistan, where he thanks a shy and reserved
Sohrab for saving his life with the slingshot. Days later, the search for the charity that was to have taken in
Sohrab turns out to be fruitless. Rahim Khan himself has disappeared, leaving for Amir only a letter and a key
to a safe-deposit box.
Chapters 24-25
With no one else to take care of him, Sohrab accompanies Amir to Islamabad, where they go to escape
Taliban spies who may be searching for them in Peshawar. Amir asks Sohrab if he would like to come to
America to live with him and his wife. Sohrab agrees only when Amir promises never to place him in an
orphanage. Amir calls Soraya to ask her to consent to the arrangement. She agrees, but a consultation with a
U.S. Embassy official reveals bureaucratic obstacles. An immigration lawyer advises a new course of action,
namely, to put Sohrab in a Pakistan orphanage for a year until he can be officially declared an orphan. When
Sohrab learns of this plan, he attempts suicide. At the same time, Amir learns from Soraya that a relative who
works for the Immigration and Nationalization Service has arranged for a humanitarian visa with which
Sohrab can enter the United States immediately. Amir waits for the outcome of the emergency surgery that he
prays will save Sohrab's life. In the urgency of the moment, Amir prays to God for the first time in fifteen
years, experiencing a sudden renewal of his Muslim faith. Sohrab survives. After several days'vigil in the
hospital, Amir tells Sohrab about the humanitarian visa. Sohrab decides to go to the United States, but his
depression is so profound that he does not speak for a year. His silent remoteness persists for months—through
the aftermath of September 11, 2001, including the Taliban's defeat and the emergence of Hamid Karzai. The
novel closes at an Afghan community gathering in Fremont, California in 2002. Amir buys a traditional
Afghan kite, complete with glass string, and flies it with Sohrab, eliciting a faint smile from Sohrab, who
remembers flying kites with his father Hassan in the wintertime. When their kite cuts down a competitor's
kite, Amir runs to retrieve the fallen kite for Sohrab, echoing the words of Hassan from decades before: "For
you a thousand times over."
The Kite Runner: Summary and Analysis
Chapter 1
In the opening chapter of the book, the narrator, Amir, provides the framework for the rest of the story. It is
December 2001, and Amir, who is an adult and has been living in the United States for the past two decades,
has just received a phone call from Rahim Khan, an old family friend in Afghanistan. After requesting that
Amir return to his homeland to see him, Rahim Khan had closed the conversation by saying cryptically,
"There is a way to be good again". The old man's words cause Amir to remember people and a host of
memories - "Hassan...Baba...Ali...Kabul... the life (he) had lived until the winter of 1975 came along and
changed everything".
Amir goes for a walk along the edge of Golden Gate Park near his home in San Francisco. His attention is
caught by the sight of "a pair of kites, red with long blue tails, soaring in the sky". As he watches them dance
high above the city, he suddently hears Hassan's voice in his head, whispering the words, "for you, a thousand
times over". In Amir's past there lurks the spectre of "unatoned sins". What happened "on a frigid overcast day
in the winter of 1975" while the twelve-year-old Amir crouched "behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into
the alley near the frozen creek" was a determining factor in his life, and has "made (him) what (he is) today."
Chapters 17-24
7
Chapter 2
Amir's (the narrartor's) friend Hassan is introduced to us. Hassan is a very faithful friend of Amir and is
constantly trying to please him. Amir often makes him do things which are obviously wrong, but Hassan
never complains and takes the blame on himself. One of their childhood pranks is to climb the poplar tree in
the driveway of Baba's house and reflect sunlight into their neighbours' house. Hassan has a cleft lip, it was as
though "the chinese doll maker's instrument may have slipped," otherwise he is beautiful.
Hassan lives with his father, Ali in a mud hut on Amir's property. His mother,Sanaubar deserted the family a
week after Hassan was born to live with a group of travelling dancers. Hassan's family is forced to live with
this stigma forever.
Amir's father is prosperous and owns an estate in an affluent neighbourhood of Kabul. Hassan's father works
for Baba. Amir's father is affectionately called by him as Baba. Baba has many friends chief among them is
Rahim Khan. Amir's mother died while giving birth to him.
Ali who is a Hazara and a Shi'a Muslim is slightly physically challenged. Ali and Hassan have to endure a lot
of discrimination because Shiite muslims were a minority and resembled the chinese because of their mongol
descent. Ali's lower facial muscles are paralyzed, so he cannot show any emotion, and his right leg is twisted
so he walks with a stange gait. Amir's family, however, is Pashtun and they are Sunni Muslims. Although
Amir and Hassan are both ethnicaly different, they are thick friends and grow up together. Amir's first word is
"Baba" and Hassan's first word is "Amir."
Chapter 3
Baba is one of the richest merchants in Kabul. Some of his businesses are an orphanage, a restaurant, and a
carpet-exporting business. Baba is a formidable man, both in stature and business. Amir is not able to draw
close to his father because he is afraid of his father for his mother died while giving birth to him. Amir
imagines that he is indirectly responsible for his mother's death and that his father hates him for that.
Baba says that theft is the one true sin. All other sins (such as murder) are variants of theft. He believes that a
murderer robs a wife of a husband, a child of a father. Baba’s father was murdered when Baba was a child.
One day, Amir overhears a conversation between Baba and Rahim Khan. Baba says that he doesn’t
understand his son Amir who is so timid and is unable to defend himself. Even when teased and pushed in the
streets, it's Hassan who has to defend him. Baba does not respect this quality, and Baba says that if he had not
been an eywitness to Amir’s birth, he would not believe that Amir is his son.
Rahim Khan says Amir just lacks a mean streak. Baba is glad Rahim Khan understands Amir and can be close
to him.
The next day, Amir snaps at Hassan out of jealousy. Amir says he does have a mean streak.
Chapter 4
Baba’s father was a judge who had adopted the orpahan Ali (Hassan's father) and raised the boy along with
his son (Baba). Baba never refers to Ali as a friend, and Amir realizes that he also never refers to Hassan as a
friend. This is because they were conscious of their ethnic superiority.
Chapter 2
8
Hassan and Ali are servants in Baba’s home. Amir goes to school, but Hassan does not, so Amir would often
read to Hassan. His favourite story was "Rustom and Sohrab." This is significant because later on Hassan will
name his son 'Sohrab.' They would, however, spend a lot of time together chasing the nomads, hurling stones
from Hasan's slingshot and watching American movies. Once, Amir pretends to read but makes up his own
story. When he finishes, Hassan claps and says it is the best story he has heard and remarks that he would love
to hear stories like the one he just heard.
This remark of Hassan inspires Amir to write his first short story that night. Amir brings the story to Baba, but
he is not interested, because Baba does not want his son to become a writer. Rahim Khan reads the story and
writes Amir a note, encouraging him to write because he has a God-given talent, especially his understanding
of irony. Amir wishes Rahim Khan was his father. He shares the story with Hassan who praises him by
remarking "bravo" - the same remark which Rahim Khan also made after reading the story. Hassan
encourages Amir saying that God willing he will become an internationally famous writer. However, Hassan
is intelligent enough to spot a problem with the plot. Amir is astounded and slightly angry, because an
illiterate, uneducated boy could find something he could not. At the end of this chapter Amir says that
suddenly Afgahnistan changed forever.
Chapter 5
Amir and Hassan’s conversation is cut short by an explosion and gunfire. There's been a coup and the present
monarchy has been overthrown. The bloodless coup, as Amir explains, has been carried out by Daoud Khan
the King's cousin who wishes to establish a Republic. Ali hides with the boys during the attack and he tries to
calm the boys by saying that it is only a duck hunt.The coup, however, was followed eighteen months later by
the Russian invansion.
One day, Amir and Hassan are stopped by Assef the neighborhood bully and his two friends Wali and Kamal.
He insults them by calling them 'kunis' or fags. He is relentlessly cruel to Hassan and constantly bullies and
harasses him because he is a Hazara. Assef brags to them that the new leader Daoud Khan dined at his house
the night before. Assef praises Hitler saying that was a great leader. He asserts that their new president should
do what Hitler did to the jews to get rid of the Hazara. (Assef himself has blue eyes and blonde hair because
his mother is German; he points out, however, that his mother despises Hitler.) He threatens, especially,
Hassan by pulling out his brass knuckles and asking Amir how he can call Hassan as his friend. Assef intends
to hurt Amir also since he and his father have "taken these people in." The talk of ethnic cleansing rouses the
rage of Hassan who trains his slingshot on Assef, and Assef backs off saying that he will get even with them
later.
Life goes on as usual in the Republic for the next few years. In the winter of 1974, as a present for Hassan’s
twelfth birthday, Baba arranges for Hassan to have his cleft lip repaired by a plastic surgeon. After the
successful surgery, his scar is barely noticeable.
Chapter 6
During the icy winter months, the schools of Kabul are closed. Kites and kite flying are popular recreations
which keep the school children busy during this holiday season. Kite flying is the chief interest that Amir
shares with Baba. Kabul holds many kite-fighting tournaments during this season that are greatly anticipated
by everyone in Kabul.
The aim of the kite flying contest is to cut down your opponent's kite with your kite's string. In order to do
this, the kite strings are coated with glue and powdered glass so that the opponent's kite string can be cut down
easily during the kite fight. Initially, Amir and Hassan would themselves make the 'tar' -the glass coated
Chapter 4
9
string, but later they realised that they were better kite flyers than kite makers. So,Baba would take the boys to
Saifo, an almost blind shoe repairman and the city’s most famous kite maker and buy them both equally
priced kites. Once a kite is cut the kite runners chase them until they land. The runner who grabs the fallen
kite gets to keep it. However the grand prize is the last cut kite.
Hassan was the greatest kite runner who had collected many a fallen kite. He seems to have a sixth sense
about where the kite will land and often doesn’t follow it with his eyes, but with his ears and his feel for the
wind. Once, Hassan just stopped and told Amir to sit down and wait, and that the kite would come. Amir
thinks he is lying, but then, before his very eyes the Hazara boy stands up and the kite that they had been
waiting for literally drops into his open arms.
In the winter of 1975, Amir sees Hassan run for a kite for the last time.This was the biggest tournament ever
and Amir is very keen on winning it to impress Baba so that he would could call him affectionately as 'Amir
Jan.'
Amir promises to buy Hassan a television and Hassan says he will put it on the table with his drawings.
Hassan tells Amir that he is content to live forever in the mud hut behind Baba's house.
Chapter 7
Hassan tells Amir on the morning of the kite tournament that he had had a dream. In the dream, they are at
Ghargha Lake with thousands of other people, but no one is swimming, because it is said that a monster has
come to the lake. Amir responds to this fear by jumping into the lake and is followed by Hassan. The two of
them go all the way to the middle and then swim back to prove that there is no monster. The people clap
wildly for them and then change the name of the lake to Lake of Amir and Hassan, Sultans of Kabul. Neither
boy has a clue to what the dream means.
Initially, Amir is scared and wants to withdraw from the tournament but Amir cheers him up and they send
their kite up. Amir wins the annual kite fight after a long and hard fought battle with a blue kite. As soon as he
cuts the blue kite he is thrilled to see Baba clapping his hands and hollering and pumping his fists wildly.
However Amir has a nagging doubt and he wonders whether Baba is proud of him or proud of Hassan. Hassan
runs after the last kite which Amir cut, which Amir plans to present to Baba as a trophy.
Amir looks for Hassan and finds him cornered in an alley by the bully Assef and his friends. They want to
take the kite and beat up Hassan. Assef tells Hassan that he is not really Amir’s friend, but only his servant.
They start to beat up Hassan as Amir crouches behind a wall, watching because he is too scared to step in to
help Hassan.
Assef then sodomizes Hassan as his friends hold him down. Amir has one last chance to stand up for Hassan
before this terrible hurt is inflicted on him. Instead, he runs terrified at what he saw. As he runs, he convinces
himself that this is the price he has to pay to win Baba's affection. He later meets Hassan and pretends he
doesn’t know what happened. Hassan gives Amir the kite, and Amir wonders if Hassan knows that Amir saw
what he saw. Amir gives the kite to Baba, who is proud of Amir. He buries his face into his father’s chest and
weeps, and for that moment he can forget what he has done.
Chapter 8
After this horrifying incident Hassan avoids Amir and spends most of his time in bed. Ali asks Amir if he
knows what happened on the night of the kite fight. Amir snaps back and tells Ali to mind his own business.
Chapter 6
10
From now onwards Baba begins to show a lot of interest in Amir, even taking him to the movies. For one
particular outing, Amir hopes to go with just Baba, but Baba invites three van loads of friends to go along.
Amir cannot enjoy any of this because he feels guilty that he has not stood up for his friend Hassan and saved
him from Assef. Amir becomes an insomniac as a result of his guilt.
Hassan attempts to be friendly with Amir again, but Amir rejects his advances.
Amir angers Baba by asking if he ever thought about getting new servants, consequently their relationship
deteriorates.
Once Amir tries to start a pomegranate fight with Hassan, but Hassan will not fight back. He takes a
pomegranate and smashes it into his own head instead of hitting Amir. This shows Hassan's loyalty to Amir.
Baba throws a huge and lavish thirteenth birthday party for Amir. Assef presents Amir with a gift- a
biography of Hitler. Rahim Khan tells Amir that he can talk to him anytime and gifts him a blank book for his
creative writing activities.
Chapter 9
Amir receives lavish gifts for his birthday, including a bicycle and expensive watch from his father. Although
the gifts should have made Amir ecstatic, he finds no joy in them; they "feel like blood money", because Amir
knows Baba would never have given them if Amir had not won the tournament. Of the many other gifts he
receives, Amir feels that a simple, leather-bound notebook from Rahim Khan, and a new copy of his favorite
book, Shahnamah, given by Ali and Hassan, are the most valuable, because they are given from the heart.
The next morning, Amir takes his watch and "a handful of Afghan bills", and hides them in Hassan's room
under his mattress. He then reports the items missing to his father. Baba consults with Ali, then calls his old
friend and Hassan before him. When he is asked if he stole the money and the watch, Hassan replies, "Yes".
Amir, stunned, understands that with this "final sacrifice", Hassan is saving him from the disgrace of being
exposed as a liar. Ali tells Baba that he and Hassan are leaving, because "life here is impossible for (them)
now", and Amir knows that Hassan has told Ali everything.
Despite Baba's tearful entreaties, Ali stands firm in his resolve. As the rain falls desolately, Amir watches,
sick with guilt, as Baba drives Ali and Hassan to the bus station.
Chapter 10
By March of 1981, the political situation in Afghanistan deteriorates to a point where "you (can't) trust anyone
in Kabul anymore...people (tell) on each other", and dead bodies regularly turn up at the side of the road. Baba
makes arrangements for himself and Amir to flee to Pakistan.
As they are being smuggled with a small group of people to Jalalabad, the truck in which Baba and Amir are
riding is stopped by Russian soldiers. One soldier lewdly demands that he be allowed "a half-hour" with the
wife of one of the refugees as "his price for letting (them) pass". Baba heroically stands up to the soldier,
risking death to save the woman's honor. Amir, whose propensity for motion-sickness has already caused his
father to be ashamed, is further reminded of his own inadequacies in the face of Baba's dramatic display of
fearlessness.
The refugees are forced to hide in a dank basement in Jalalabad for over a week with another group, among
which Amir recognizes Kamal, one of the boys who was present at the rape of Hassan. Ironically, Kamal
Chapter 8
11
himself has been victimized by group of hooligans in lawless Kabul, and is now catatonic. The refugees must
make the last leg of their journey in the belly of a fuel tanker. By the time they arrive in Pakistan, Kamal has
succumbed to the fumes, and his distraught father grabs a gun and shoots himself.
Chapter 11
Baba and Amir settle in Fremont, California. Baba does not fit in and is not happy working at a gas station.
He says he came to America for Amir. Amir says,"For me, America was a place to bury my memories.
For Baba, a place to mourn his." This statement expresses succinctly the trauma of the diaspora.
Amir graduates from high school in 1983 at the age of 20. After graduation Baba takes him out to dinner and
then to a bar where they drink. Baba winds up drinking too much but makes a good impression on all the
patrons of the bar and buys them free rounds of drinks. When they get home Baba tells Amir to drive to the
end of the block, a Ford Grand Torino is sitting there, Baba said it needed work, but it ran and will be needed
for Amir to go to college.
Amir displeases his father when he tells him he wants to major in English in college.
Amir and Baba buy a VW bus and go to frequent garage sales. They then sell the items at a profit at the flea
market. Amir meets Soraya, the daughter of Baba’s old friend, General Taheri.
Chapter 12
Amir meets Soraya at the flea market and is infatuated with her. From then on, every night of the week
becomes a "Yelda" for him before he could see her once again at the weekly flea market. Metaphorically,
"Yelda" was the "starless night tormented lovers kept vigil enduring the endless dark waiting for the sun to
rise and bring with it their loved one." Sorya wants to become a teacher and she is majoring in general
education at Ohlone Junior College in Fremont. The attraction is mutual and she asks him to read to her one of
his stories. Baba who is able to understand that Amir is in love with Soraya tries to dissuade him by reminding
him that General Taheri, Soraya's father a Pashtun will not permit his honour and pride to agree to the match.
True to Baba's prediction General Taheri chances upon Amir when he gives a story he has written to Soraya
and takes it from him and throws it into to the garbage can, remarking casually "They say it will rain this
week. Hard to believe, isn't it."
Baba is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. He refuses medical tratment and instructs Amir not to tell
anyone remarking "I don't want anybody's sympathy." However, when he collapses with a seizure at the flea
market everyone comes to know. Soraya and her family visit Baba. Days later, at Amir's insistence Baba
arranges Amir’s engagement to Soraya after getting the approval of General Taheri. Soraya, in private,reveals
to Amir her past: when she was eighteen and was living in Virginia she ran away with a man and lived with
him for a month and her father searched for her and eventually brought her back home. Amir admits to her
that he is slightly disturbed by her confession but that he loves her nevertheless. Amir recognises that she is a
more courageous person than himself because he is unable to share his secret guilt with her of how he had
betrayed Hassan:"I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me.
Courage was just one of them."
Chapter 13
The "Lafz" or the ceremony of "giving word" takes place in the General's house, with Baba formally
requesting that the two families be united and the General declaring, "we are honoured that your family and
Chapter 10
12
ours will be joined." The "Shirini-Khori" or the "Eating of the Sweets" ceremony is cancelled and the
engagement period is curtailed because of Baba's sickness. Consequently Amir and Soraya never go out alone
before their marriage. For the "awroussi" or the wedding ceremony Baba spent $35,000-almost all his savings.
During the wedding ceremony Amir wonders whether Hassan was also married. By the time the celebrations
are over it is almost daybreak. Amir remarks "that night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman."
Soraya moves in with Amir and Baba because Baba is so sick. She takes responsibility for Baba’s care and
nurses him devotedly. He dies one month later in his sleep. At Baba's funeral Amir is desolate and remarks,
"Baba couldn't show me the way anymore. I'd have to find it on my own. The thought of it terrified me."
Fortunately for him, Soraya hugs him and comforts him when he begins to cry.
After Baba's death they move to a single bedroom apartment in Fremont. He sells Baba's old VW bus and
stops going to the flea market. The General presents Amir with an IBM typewriter as a housewarming gift.
The couple settles into a routine. Both of them enrol at San Jose State University. Amir as an English Major
student and Soraya in the teaching track. Her father objects to her becoming a teacher but she determinedly
remarks, "teaching may not pay much, but it's what I want to do."
Amir finishes his first novel ("a father-son story set in Kabul") in 1988. The book is released the following
year and Amir becomes "a minor celebrity in the Afghan community." Amir remembers Hassan’s belief in
his talent and ability for creative writing.
The couple try to conceive for one year. They are unsuccessful and try in-vitro fertilization but to no avail.
They consider adoption but Soraya's father does not approve saying, "blood is a powerful thing, Bachem, and
when you adopt you don't know whose blood you are bringing into the house," and so they decide not to
adopt. However, the childlessness affects their intimacy: "it had seeped into our marriage, that emptiness, into
our laughs and our lovemaking."
Chapter 14
The story shifts to June 2001. Amir and Soraya have a cocker spaniel named Aflatoon, which means Plato in
Farsi. The General named him Plato because he said, “that if you looked hard enough and long enough into
the dog’s filmy black eyes you’d swear he was thinking wise thoughts.” Soraya, has been teaching at the
same school for six years. She has aged gracefully and is as attractive as ever.
Amir gets a call from Rahim Khan one day asking him to come and visit him in Pakistan, remarking
mysteriously "come.There is a way to be good again." So, Amir tells Soraya that he has to go to Pakistan to
visit Rahim Khan, who is very sick. Amir believes that there is an un-spoken secret between Rahim Khan and
himself. This is foreshadowing the fact that Rahim Khan knows all about Hassan, and how he is Amir’s
brother and will soon tell him. Rahim Khan, has also always known about the circumstances surrounding
Hassan, being raped, and what Amir did in order to get Hassan and Ali out of his life. Amir finally decides to
go to Pakistan and visit Rahim Khan.
Soraya's parents are to move in with her after Amir leaves for Pakistan. The General has fallen down and has
broken his hip and is in poor health because of his failing kidneys. He is nursed lovingly by his wife. The
General meanwhile has come to accept Soraya as a teacher and would sometimes even attend her classes.
Both Soraya and Amir have learnt to accept their childless state stoically, but it has begun to affect their
marital happiness.
Chapter 13
13
Chapter 15
Amir arrives at Peshawar in Pakistan. The taxi driver Gholam drops him off at Rahim's place and "a thing
made of skin and bones pretending to be Rahim Khan opened the door." After the initial embarrassing
moments they warm up to one another. Rahim Khan is happy to hear that Amir is married to General Taheri's
daughter because the General's brother in law Sharif Jan is a former acquaintance of his. Amir tells "him a lot
about Baba, his job, the flea market, and how, at the end, he died happy." Amir also talks about himself, his
schooling and his success as a writer.
Gholam, the taxi driver, on the way to Rahim Khan's house had hinted to Amir of the brutality of the Taliban.
Rahim Khan confirms this by telling him how he was violently assaulted by a Taliban youth for no fault of his
during a soccer match. Rahim Khan tells Amir that life under Taliban rule is unbearable. Rahim Khan was in
fact happy at first when the Taliban defeated the Russian soldiers because he thought life in Kabul would
improve. He even danced on the street when the Taliban arrived to oust the Alliance. This was because as
Rahim Khan himself remarks, "the Aliance did more damage to Kabul than the Shorawi" - even the orphanage
built by Baba was destroyed by the Alliance. The Taliban was welcomed by everyone as liberating heroes
because they expected the fighting to stop soon. The Taliban ushered in peace, but only to make matters
worse. Amir asks him why he didn't leave Kabul to escape the harsh living conditions under the Taliban rule.
Baba replies, "Kabul was my home, it still is."
Rahim Khan tells Amir that Hassan lived with him in Baba’s house in Kabul after he left. It's plain that
Rahim Khan is very sick and dying. Amir's offer of taking him to America for medical treatment is turned
down by Baba because he knows that he will die soon. Rahim Khan tells Amir that he has called him to
Peshawar because he wants him to do something for him but before that he wants to tell Amir everything
about Hassan - he wants to reveal the truth to Amir about Hassan's parentage.
Chapter 16
Rahim Khan begins by describing to Amir his desolate life in Kabul under Russian rule. He was growing old
and finding it difficult to maintian Baba's large house all by himself. After Baba's death he was so
overwhelmed by loneliness that he decided to take Hassan into the house. He managed to find Hassan who
was living in a village outside Bamiyan. Hassan was married and his wife, Farzana Jan, was expecting.
Hassan is saddened to hear from him that Ali had been killed by a land mine. Rahim Khan enjoys the meal
cooked for him by Farzana and stays overnight. When Rahim Khan first asks Hassan to come with him to
Kabul Hassan refuses saying he has settled down to a peaceful life in the village, but however the next
morning he and his wife agree to come to Kabul. Hassan asks Rahim Kham many questions about Amir, and
he answers him to the best of his knowledge. When Hassan hears about Baba's death he is grief stricken and
cries his heart out.
When they arrive at Kabul, Hassan refuses to stay in the house saying it was a matter "ihtiram, a matter of
respect," and moves in with his wife into the very same hut in the backyard where he was born. Hassan, then,
mourned Baba's death by wearing black for forty days.
Hassan and his wife look after the house with great care as though they were expecting Amir to arrive from
America any moment. Farzana gives birth to a still born girl child and is heartbroken. However, in early 1990,
she becomes pregnant again. In the summer of that year Sanaubar, Hassan's mother makes a sudden
appearance. She was once very attractive but now she is scarred beyond recognition, the victim of a brutal
knife attack.She had eloped with a band of travelling singers and dancers in 1964 soon after giving birth to
Hassan,without even holding him. Sanaubar is gradually nursed back to health and in course of time Hassan
forgives her and is reconciled to her. In the winter of 1990 Sanaubar delivers Hassan's son, Sohrab. She and
Chapter 15
14
her grandson became very fond of one another: "the two of them were inseaparable." When Sohrab was four
years old, Sanaubar died in her sleep.
In due course Hassan taught his son Sohrab, to be a kite runner. The Taliban,however, banned kite fighting
shortly after taking power in 1996. The Taliban fighters indulged in ethnic cleansing and massacred the
Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Chapter 17
Amir asks Rahim Khan whether Hassan is still staying in Baba's house in Kabul. Rahim Khan hands him an
envelope which contains a polaroid photograph of Hassan and his son and Hassan's letter addressed to Amir.
The photograph was taken by Rahim Khan on the eve of his departure to Peshawar in Pakistan.
In that letter, Hassan describes his difficult life under Taliban rule and the hardhips he and his family face.
Hassan writes in that letter, "kindness is gone from the land, and you cannot escape the killings. Always the
killings." He tells him how Farzana was assaulted by a Taliban youth just because she spoke loudly in the
bazaar. Hassan concludes the letter saying, "I dream that someday you will return to Kabul to revisit the land
of our childhood. If you do, you will find an old faithful friend waiting for you."
Amir is shocked to hear of the brutal manner in which the Taliban officials shot and killed Hassan and
Farzana a month after Rahim Khan had left for Pakistan. The Taliban officers came to take possession of
Baba's house and when Hassan resisted he and his wife were shot dead.
Rahim Khan asks Amir to go to Kabul and bring 10 year old Sohrab who is now in an orphanage in Karteh
Seh. Rahim Khan wants to place Sohrab in a charitable organisation run by an American couple Thomas and
Betty Caldwell. Amir refuses saying that it is too dangerous to go to Kabul now and that he is ready to pay for
someone to go to Kabul and bring Sohrab to Peshawar. Rahim Khan becomes angry and remarks that it is not
a question of money and that there is another very important reason for Amir and only Amir to go and fetch
Sohrab from Kabul.
He then reveals to Amir that Ali had been sterile and that Hassan was actually Baba’s son through Sanaubar.
Hassan had all along been unaware that Baba was actually his biological father.When Amir hears this he is
too shocked and angry and storms out of Rahim Khan's apartment.
Chapter 18
Amir feels betrayed and angry and does a lot of soul searching in "a smoky little samovar house," as he "took
a gulp of the blackest tea he'd had in years." He feels as disoriented as a man who awakens in his own home
and suddenly finds all the furniture completely rearranged. He now understood why Baba was so deeply
attached to Hassan and why he had arranged for plastic surgery to correct Hassan's harelip and why "he
(Baba) had wept, wept, when Ali announced that he and Hassan were leaving [them]." He is now convinced
that his father is a thief, "and a thief of the worst kind, because the things he'd stolen had been sacred: from
me the right to know I had a brother, from Hassan his identity, and from Ali his honor." He feels guilty that
he, like his father, betrayed the one person who would have done anything for him: "we had both betrayed the
people who would have given their lives for us." He realises that if Ali and Hassan had both come to America,
"where most people didn't even know what a Hazara was" things would have been different. Amir decides to
go to Kabul to set right matters by bringing Sohrab to Peshawar and thus "atone not just for his sins but for
Baba's too."
Chapter 16
15
Chapter 19
Amir enters Afghanistan with the help of Farid a battle scarred Tajik who drives a battered Land Cruiser. He
has contempt for Amir because he was born with privilege. Farid dislikes Amir at first because he believes
that the only reason Amir is returning to Afghanistan is so that he can sell off his property, and ultimately
make money. Farid takes Amir to Wahid's (his brother) house in Jalalabad. There, Amir is served a dinner,
which he offers to share with Wahid's children. Amir notices that the children are staring at his watch. During
dinner, Amir reveals to Wahid and his family that he has returned to Afghanistan in order to rescue his half
brother's son. Wahid is impressed and praises Amir saying, "you are an honorable man, Amir agha, a true
Afghan." Later on, he overhears Wahid and his wife arguing that they had to give food to Amir since he was a
guest, even though they barely had any food for themselves. Farid thinks better of him when he learns why he
is going to Kabul. Farid and Amir leave the house, and Amir gives his watch to one of the children. However,
Amir realizes the kids weren't staring at his watch at all, they were actually staring at his food. At the very end
of the chapter, Amir reveals to us that he has put money under his matress for the children to find and buy
food with. He also realized it had been 26 years since he had put money under someone's bed; the first time,
however, was for a terrible purpose. This reveals how much Amir has grown and changed as a man.
Chapter 20
The next day Amir and Farid leave Jalalabad and arrive at Kabul after a tiring four hour long "bone-jarring"
ride on a road full of potholes. Amir is traumatised to see the battle scarred countryside devastated by both the
Russians and theTaliban. Inspite of Farid warning him that the Kabul of today is not what it once was, Amir is
shocked at what he sees: "rubble and beggars. Everywhere I looked that was what I saw." Most of the beggars
are small children on their mothers' laps. The men folk have been killed in the successive wars.
Amir is traumatised to see all the familiar landmarks of his Afghan childhood completely destroyed,
especially Jadeh Maywand the place where he used to buy his kites from Saifo the Kitemaker: "Jadeh
Maywand had turned into a giant sand castle."
After driving a short while Amir comes face to face with the Taliban for the first time. A red Toyota pickup
truck passes by with young bearded Taliban soldiers. Frightened, Amir stares at them as the truck passes
slowly by them. Amir warns him not to provoke them by staring at them, for the Taliban are always on the
look out for a reason to stir up trouble. Soon, they are joined in their conversation by an old beggar. Amir is
pleasantly surprised to learn that the beggar is actually Dr.Rasul who had been a lecturer at the university
from 1958 to 1996. Dr.Rasul had been acquainted with Amir's mother Sophia Akrami who had also been a
lecturer at the university at that time. Amir is deeply touched when Dr.Rasul the beggar relates to him the
details of his last conversation with her. Amir poignantly remarks, "I had just learned more about my my
mother from this old man on the street than I ever did from Baba."
Amir and Farid finally locate the orphanage "in the northern part of Karteh-Seh along the banks of the
dried-up Kabul river." The director of the orphanage, Zaman, disappoints them by saying that just a month
ago he had sold Sohrab to a Taliban official. Farid is furious and almost strangles to death Zaman because he
is indulging in child-trafficking. Zaman defends himself saying that the money that he earns by selling
children is used to feed the other children in the orphanage, and that unlike the others he did not flee
Afghanistan but stayed back to care for the orphaned children. Zaman instructs them to go to the Ghazi
stadium the next day where they can meet a Taliban official wearing black sunglasses who will help them in
locating Sohrab.
Chapter 19
16
Chapter 21
On the way to the Ghazi Stadium Amir and Farid see the corpse of a young man who had been hanged
recently and a lame man selling his artificial leg. Shortly afterwards they arrive at Wazir Akbar Khan district
and Amir identifies his childhood home correctly with the help of an old landmark.This neighbourhood is
better maintained than the other places, because as Farid points out this is the locality where the Taliban and
foreign VIPs reside.
Amir peers through the rusted iron bars of the gate of his childhood home and is transported back in time and
a wave of nostalgia brings back all the memories of his childhood Eden.The entire house and its surroundings
had suffered neglect and Amir remarks sadly, "like so much else in Kabul, my father's house was the picture
of fallen splendor." With great difficulty he resists the temptation to go in. Farid is impatient to get to the
stadium, but Amir tells him that he has look up one more thing. Amir climbs up the hill north to Baba's house
visits the cemetry where Hassan's mother is buried and then sees the same pomegranate tree on whose trunk
the legend "Amir and Hassan. The Sultans of Kabul" had been inscribed.
They spend the night in a very cheap hotel which had no electricity. Farid tells him about his past and they
share many 'Mullah Nasruddin' jokes. Amir feels disgusted when Farid finds it difficult to believe why he
should risk his life for a 'Shiia' boy and he loses all sleep while Farid snores away blissfully.
The next day, they go to Ghazi Stadium to find the official who bought Sohrab. The stadium is filled with
people watching a game of soccer. In keeping with the strict rules laid down by the Taliban the players are
wearing "long pants" and the spectators are prevented from cheering too noisily. During halftime, a man and a
woman are stoned to death for adultery on the same soccer field by a man in white and wearing "John Lennon
sunglasses" - the same Taliban official whom they had come to meet. After half time, the bodies are removed
and the soccer game continues.
To their pleasant surprise and relief Amir and Farid arrange for a three o’clock appointment with the official.
Chapter 22
Amir goes in alone to see the official, who lives in a palatial home. He is verbally abused and threatened by
the official, who instructs guards to bring Sohrab to the room. He looks just like Hassan. Sohrab is dressed
almost like a court jester, wearing make-up, and forced to dance whenever music is played.
The official asks Amir where “babalu” is, in reference to Ali. He removes his glasses, and Amir realizes the
official is actually Assef. Assef says he can have Sohrab, but first he has to earn him. Assef tells his guards
not to come in the room, no matter what they hear. He and Amir have unsettled business. Only one of them
will come out alive. If it is Amir, then the guards will have to let Amir and Sohrab go.
Assef beats Amir badly, breaking his nose and teeth. Amir starts laughing. He believes it is funny how just
now that he is being beaten up he finally feels comfort. His laughing angers Assef more.
The fight ends when Sohrab points his slingshot at Assef, who lunges at Sohrab. Sohrab’s shot takes out
Assef’s eye. This fulfilles the taunt of Hassan of calling him a "One Eyed Assef". Sohrab helps Amir out of
the house. Farid drives them away.
Chapter 21
17
Chapter 23
Amir fades in and out of consciousness. He wakes up two days later in a hospital in Peshawar with a broken
jaw, punctured lung, ruptured spleen, and other injuries. Dr.Faruqi the-head and-neck surgeon has saved his
life in the nick of the moment. Amir recovers slowly but surely under the devoted care of the nurse Aisha.
Amir'supper lip is badly cut and Faruqi tells him that even after plastic surgery there will be a scar. Amir's
upper lip has been cut and it now resembles a hare lip - like that of Hassan's before his surgery.
On the next day, Farid and Sohrab visit Amir. Amir introduces himself to Sohrab and thanks him for saving
his life. But Sohrab,who is now wearing Farid's son's clothes, does not warm up to Amir and does not take
Amir's hand when he offers it to him.
Rahim Khan has left town, leaving a letter for Amir and a small key. He tells Amir that he should forgive
himself for what happened to Hassan and he should also forgive Baba someday. Rahim Khan explains that
Baba was torn between his two sons and took out his frustration on Amir because Amir resembled him and
constantly reminded him of his guilt: "when he saw you, he saw himself. And his guilt." Rahim Khan also
leaves his money in a safe deposit box for Amir. The small key is the key to the safe deposit-box.
Amir has to be moved soon because the Taliban are looking for him. Amir writes down the names of the
American couple John and Betty Caldwell so that Farid could look for them and he could arrange to leave
Sohrab under their care. Amir bonds slowly with Sohrab over a game of cards called 'panjpar.' Farid confirms
from the American consulate that there never was a couple called 'John and Betty Caldwell.' Amir realises that
they were fictitious names created by Rahim Khan.
Amir gets himself discharged from the hospital, collects the money from the bank bids farewell to Farid and
reaches Islamabad with Amir after a four hour long ride.
Chapter 24
Amir wakes up one night and Sohrab is gone. He finds him by the mosque. Sohrab says he is beginning to
forget what his parents look like. Sohrab is ashamed of what Assef did to him. Amir offers to take him to live
with him in America.
Amir calls his wife and tells her about Hassan, what happened in Kabul, and his desire to adopt Sohrab.
A man at the American Embassy in Islamabad says adopting Sohrab is impossible, due to the fact that Amir
would need death certificates of his parents (Hassan and Farzana), when most people in Afghanistan hardly
had birth certificates. Also, he would need to prove that Sohrab is really his half nephew, which was nearly
impossible as well. However, he still gives them the name of an immigration lawyer. Amir meets with the
lawyer who says Sohrab may have to wait in an orphanage. He is willing to help. Soraya arranges for a
humanitarian visa to get Sohrab into the U.S. Later, Amir tells Sohrab that he would need to go to an
orphanage again. Terrified, Sohrab becomes very upset. Later that night, Sohrab was taking a bath; Amir
enters to talk with Sohrab, but finds that he has slit his wrists with a razorblade. It was said that Amir was still
screaming after the ambulance arrived.
Chapter 25
Sohrab does not want to be put in an orphanage, so he tries to commit suicide by cutting his wrist while in the
bath tub. Amir saves him and rushes him to the hospital in the nick of time. At the hospital Amir cries out in
Chapter 23
18
prayer: "I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I'd always feared they would" and he
falls asleep. Dr.Nawaz wakes him up and gives him the good news that Sohrab has survived: "they would
have lost him if his heart hadn't been young and strong." Three days later Sohrab is shifted out of the ICU.
Amir is asked to vacate his hotel room.
Sohrab now shares a room with another patient - a teenaged Punjabi patient. Sohrab is very weak and refuses
to talk to Amir. Amir tries his best to cheer him up but to no avail. Even when Amir reads the story about
'Sohrab and Rostam' from the "Shah namah" he shows no interest. He merely whispers, "tired of everything."
Sohrab asks Amir to give him back his happy childhood past: "I want my old life back." and Amir says its
simply not possible:"I can't give you that." Sohrab replies that he wished that Amir had allowed him to die.
Amir assures him that even though he cannot give him back his lost childhood he has got him the visa to take
him to America alongwith him. Amir seeks his forgiveness and asks him whether he will come with him to
America. Sohrab has no choice and he meekly surrenders: "what he yearned for was his old life. What he got
was me and America."
For a year after the suicide attempt Sohrab does not talk. A week later Amir and Sohrab arrive in America but
Sohrab continues to remain silent. Even Soraya is not able to make him talk. Finally, Amir reveals to Soraya's
parents Sohrab's real identity: "he's my nephew." Sohrab continues to remain silent and refuses to talk to Amir
and Soraya. Amir is deeply saddened that all their attempts to cheer up Sohrab and give him a happy
childhood have failed.
"Then on a cool rainy day in March 2002, a small, wondrous thing happened." At a party conducted by the
American Afghan community, Amir buys Sohrab a kite. The two of them win the kite flying contest together
just he and Hassan had done many years ago. Amir is Sohrab's kite runner and the novel ends with Sohrab
smiling for the first time for Amir.
The Kite Runner: Characters
Ali
Ali is the lifelong servant of Baba's family. Stricken with polio as a child, Ali endures the ridicule of the local
boys for his pronounced limp and gnarled appearance. Steadfastly loyal to Baba and Amir, Ali lives with his
only child Hassan in a modest servant's house on Baba's property. Ali was abandoned by his wife Sanaubar,
who ran away soon after giving birth to Hassan. He belongs to the marginalized Hazara ethnic group, which
historically resided in the mountainous Hazajarat region of Afghanistan. Despite this, Ali is a proud man who
rejects dishonor and leaves Baba's household rather than live with the shame of his son being thought a thief.
Amir
Amir is the protagonist of The Kite Runner. Born into a privileged Pashtun family, Amir grows up in Kabul,
Afghanistan raised by his father. His mother died in childbirth. As a boy, Amir is bookish, thoughtful, and
unathletic. An introverted thinker, he prefers to write stories in his notebook rather than play soccer, much to
his father's chagrin. Amir indulges in a recurrent fantasy of a warmer understanding with his father and is
strongly motivated by the wish to make this fantasy a reality—ultimately with tragic results. Constantly trying
to earn his father's approval, Amir struggles for every scrap of his father's attention. He becomes jealous when
his father pays more attention to Hassan, the son of the family servant Ali. Still, Amir is close to his servant
and playmate Hassan. They spend entire days together, especially in the wintertime, and carve their names in
a tree behind the house. Torn between affection for his friend and his need for his father's love, Amir often
takes advantage of Hassan's gullibility and illiteracy. Ironically, his propensity to trick Hassan—making up
false stories he pretends to read out of his schoolbooks—inspires him to discover his future calling as a writer.
Chapter 25
19
After moving to the United States with his father, Amir becomes a student and later a writer. After marrying a
young Afghan woman named Soraya Taheri, he publishes his first novel. However, his childhood betrayal of
Hassan haunts his adult life, and he eventually travels back to Kabul in order to make things right.
Assef
An older bully who also comes from a privileged family, Assef is the tall, blond-haired son of a German
mother and an Afghan father. Flanked by flunkies who assist him in his misdeeds, Assef is a racist with a
fascistic streak. He admires Hitler, and even gives Amir a biography of Hitler as a birthday present. Assef
believes Afghanistan should be "purified" of the Hazara ethnic group and kept for the dominant Pashtun
ethnic group alone. After an encounter with Amir and Hassan in which Hassan forces Assef to retreat with his
slingshot, Assef vows payback. Later, with the help of two flunkies, he gets his revenge by raping Hassan in
an alley on the night of the annual kite-fighting contest. Assef frightens Amir with his apparently sadistic
personality; even Assef's own parents are cowed in his presence as if they, too, fear him. Assef grows up to
become a high-ranking official in the Taliban government, when he and Amir meet for a final time.
Baba
A stubborn, energetic man and a prosperous merchant, Amir's father is as well-respected for his commercial
successes as for his philanthropic endeavors. A great host, Baba is given to grand gestures and excessive
hospitality. After his wife died while giving birth to Amir, Baba finds it difficult to relate to a son who is so
different from himself—introverted, tentative, and intellectual instead of outgoing, strong, and decisive. He
observes with disgust that when Amir and Hassan get into scrapes with local boys, Hassan, not Amir, stands
up to the bullies. Baba never remarried, preferring to surround himself with male friends and business
associates in a house more often than not filled with guests. A Sunni Muslim and an ethical man, Baba
counsels his son never to steal; yet he opposes organized religion and dismisses the warnings of the mullahs
(religious teachers) who provide religious instruction in Amir's schools. Despite his stern attitude toward his
son, he is a loving father. When Baba and Amir move to California, Baba works at a gas station so Amir can
complete his schooling. He proudly presents his son to the Taheri family as a prospective husband for their
daughter Soraya, and in the end respects his son for who he has become.
Farid
A driver and guide introduced to Amir by Rahim Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan. Farid is a tough man who has
lost several family members to Taliban violence. He drives Amir to Kabul to rescue Sohrab, Hassan's son.
Suspicious of Amir at first, Farid eventually respects him for risking his life to save a boy he has never met.
Although he has responsibilities, with a wife and small children, he chooses to help Amir on an honorable
mission.
Farzana
A young Hazara woman, Farzana is Hassan's wife and Sohrab's mother. After living in Hazarajat, she and
Hassan move to Kabul where they live with Rahim Khan in Amir and Baba's old house. When Hassan's
mother Sanaubar appears after a decades-long absence, Farzana nurses the older woman back to health. When
she gives birth to Sohrab, Sanaubar serves as her midwife. Farzana, along with Hassan, is shot and killed by
the Taliban for being a Hazara in the wrong area of Kabul.
Amir
20
Hassan
The son of Ali, Hassan is also a servant at Baba's house and about the same age as Amir. Fiercely loyal,
Hassan is Amir's constant companion. Although born with a harelip, he is unselfconscious and happy, known
for his easy smile. Illiterate but endowed with a sharp native intelligence, Hassan is strong, athletic, and
courageous. Incapable of deceit, he cannot tell when Amir is tricking him. His premier talent is running the
kites in the annual winter kite tournament in Kabul. Kite runners chase the fallen kites that are the casualties
of the contest. Hassan has an uncanny ability to sense where the kites will land. His innocent, trusting nature
belies a perceptiveness about Amir's state of mind. For example, Hassan reassures Amir when Amir is
nervous about his performance in the annual kite competition. After Hassan is raped by the bully Assef,
Hassan knows Amir saw the attack and did nothing but never raises the subject. Instead, when Amir betrays
him a second time by telling Baba that Hassan has stolen from them, Hassan apologizes as if he committed
the crime. Hassan and Ali leave Kabul and return to the Hazajarat region where the Hazara people have
historically resided, but Hassan never holds a grudge against Amir for his actions.
Kamal
One of Assef's companions who reluctantly helps Assef rape Hassan, Kamal later becomes the victim of a
similar attack and dies as he and his father attempt to escape Afghanistan for Pakistan during the repressive
Soviet-backed regime.
Rahim Khan
Baba's business associate, Rahim Khan frequently visits with Baba to discuss their common commercial
interests, Afghan politics, and personal matters. As his best friend and advisor, Khan frequently steps in when
friction between father and son creates misunderstandings. Khan encourages Amir's interest in writing by
giving him a journal for his thirteenth birthday and sympathizes with the latter's desperate attempts to earn his
father's approval. Khan is also the guardian of a serious family secret. After Amir and Baba leave
Afghanistan, he lives in their house, hoping to return it to them once the political turmoil in Kabul comes to
an end. Later, growing older and lonelier, Khan finds Hassan and brings the latter and his wife to live with
him in Kabul. Khan becomes gravely ill and moves to Pakistan. He contacts the adult Amir in the United
States, summons him to Pakistan, and relates to Amir the history of Hassan, his wife, and their young son.
Sohrab
The young son of Hassan and Farzana, born in Kabul, who survives his parents'execution by the Taliban.
Sohrab is named after one of the heroes of the traditional Afghan heroic tale, the Shahnammah. After his
parents'death, Sohrab lands in an ill-equipped orphanage in Kabul, where the children are preyed upon by
lecherous Taliban officials. After escaping from his abuser and going with Amir to Pakistan, Sohrab tries to
commit suicide upon hearing he may have to return to an orphanage. When he awakes after emergency
surgery, he tells Amir that he is too tired to live. Provided with a humanitarian visa, Sohrab can go to the
United States to live with Amir and Soraya, where he lives in silence. He does not utter a word for the first
year he is there.
General Iqbal Taheri
The father of Soraya, Amir's love interest, General Taheri is a dignified man well-known in the Afghan
community in Northern California. Always clad in a worn, but well-made suit, General Taheri is too proud to
work, viewing common work as a contradiction to his former importance in the Afghan government. He goes
Hassan
21
to the weekly flea market where he socializes with other Afghan immigrants who gather there every weekend,
referring to his modest flea market trade as a "hobby" that allows him to keep in touch with friends. His wife
and daughter tend their market stall while the General talks politics with their friends and neighbors. General
Taheri hopes for the end of the Taliban regime and an offer to return to Kabul to take a post in a future
Afghan government.
Khanum Taheri
Also known as Khala Jamila, Khanum Taheri is General Taheri's wife and Soraya's mother. Endowed with a
bubbly personality and a streak of hypochondria, she frequently worries about her health or her family.
Although she was once well-known in Kabul for her beautiful singing voice, her husband now forbids her to
sing in public.
Soraya Taheri
Soraya is the daughter of the once-prominent General Taheri who had a great deal of influence in the
government of the pre-Taliban Afghanistan. An intelligent, beautiful young woman, she adheres to the
traditions of the patriarchal Afghan culture, despite her rebellious attitude toward her father's domineering
manner and the double standard of gender dynamics that her father upholds. Like Amir and Baba, Soraya and
her family are exiles from Afghanistan who assemble with the Afghan community at Saturday swap meets
and other gatherings. Despite a scandalous past when she lived with a man to whom she was not married,
Soraya endures the persistent gossip in the Afghan community and dedicates herself to the care of her new
husband and father-in-law while pursing her goal of becoming a teacher.
Zaman
A struggling orphanage director in Kabul, Zaman tells Amir and Farid where they can find the Taliban official
who has abducted Sohrab.
The Kite Runner: Essential Passages
Essential Passages by Character: Amir
Essential Passage 1: Chapter 7
I stopped watching, turned away from the alley. Something warm was running down my
wrist. I blinked, saw I was still biting down on my fist, hard enough to draw blood from the
knuckles. I realized something else. I was weeping. From just around the corner, I could hear
Assef’s quick, rhythmic grunts.
I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to
be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he’d stepped up for me all those
times in the past—and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run.
In the end, I ran.
I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid
of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan. That’s
what I made myself believe. I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real
General Iqbal Taheri
22
reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe
Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price?
The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara,
wasn’t he?
Summary
Amir has just emerged victorious in the kite-flying tournament, having sawn through the string of the last
remaining kite and thus freeing it to fly free. Hassan, the son of his father’s servant and also his friend, was
the best kite runner in Kabul, chasing down the free-flying kites. Hassan had run off to find this kite that was a
symbol of Amir’s victory, a victory that Amir hoped would bring some measure of pride to his father, Baba,
for his only son. Amir, running to find Hassan, comes across his friend cornered in an alley by three bullies.
Assef, whose mother was German and who had a keen fascination for Adolph Hitler, has demanded that
Hassan give him the kite. Hassan refuses because he has promised it for Amir. Assef then agrees that Hassan
should keep the kite so that it will remind him of what is about to happen to him. With his two friends holding
Hassan down, Assef rapes Hassan. Amir is hiding, observing the rape take place. Too afraid to interfere and
protect his friend, all he does is stand and watch. Overcome with fear and guilt, Amir runs, leaving Hassan in
the hands of the bullies. This is a moment that will henceforth affect all the characters’ lives.
Essential Passage 2: Chapter 14
I thought about a comment Rahim Khan had made just before we hung up. Made it in
passing, almost as an afterthought. I closed my eyes and saw him at the other end of the
scratchy long-distance line, saw him with his lips slightly parted, head tilted to one side. And
again, something in his bottomless black eyes hinted at an unspoken secret between us.
Except now I knew he knew. Suzanne...there is something in his bottomless black eyes hinted
at an unspoken secret between us. Except now I knew he knew. My suspicions had been right
all those years. He knew about Assef, the kite, the money, the watch with the lightning bolt
hands. He had always known.
Come. There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before
hanging up. Said it in passing, almost as an afterthought.
A way to be good again.
Summary
In the summer of 2001, after living for many years in America, Amir receives a telephone call from Rahim
Khan, his father’s old friend. Rahim tells Amir that he is ill and needs him to come to Pakistan. Amir senses
there is some other reason, so he agrees to return to the East. A chance phrase at the end of the phone call
makes Amir think about the past: "There is a way to be good again." For many years, Amir has kept secret the
fact that he saw Hassan be raped and did nothing. Then, to assuage his guilt, he planted money and his watch
under Hassan’s pillow. Amir accused Hassan of theft so that he would be sent away. With that one phrase
from Rahim, however, Amir knows that it is not really a secret. Rahim knows all that he has done and that he
has lived concealing the secrets of his acts of cowardice. Rahim knows his true character. With this return,
Rahim is offering Amir a chance for redemption.
Essential Passage 3: Chapter 25
I looked at the photo. Your father was a man torn between two halves, Rahim Khan had said
in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting
embodiment of Baba’s guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth,
sunlight slanting on his face. Baba’s other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half
Essential Passages by Character: Amir
23
who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most
secret recesses of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son.
I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought
had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab’s door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness
budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and
slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.
Summary
Amir has rescued Sohrab, Hassan’s son, from Assef. After many hurdles and difficulties, Amir has brought
him to America, to be adopted by himself and Soraya. Sohrab, thinking that Amir was breaking his promise to
him and placing him in an orphanage, had attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. Although Amir assured
him that he was not going to the orphanage but to America with him, Sohrab does not talk, and will not talk,
for almost a year. As Amir watches Sohrab asleep that first night in his new bed, he sees the photograph of
Sohrab and Hassan that Amir had given to him. Long feeling angry at the secret that Baba had kept from him,
that Hassan was not just a servant but his son and Amir’s brother, Amir finally is able to forgive his father.
Baba had told him long ago that lying was the greatest sin because it was a theft. When Amir discovered that
Baba lied for years, he develops a cold anger at the theft not only of the truth but of the brother that he could
have had all these years. He realizes that he no longer feels the pain of anger that he has felt toward his father.
Analysis of Essential Passages
In The Kite Runner, the main character, Amir, is well on his way to being a classic tragic hero through his
fatal flaws of fear, unresolved guilt, and unforgiveness. From his childhood until well into his adulthood,
Amir must battle the character weaknesses that have marked his life, even in the midst of happiness.
Amir’s cowardice, bred by insecurity in his father's love, leads him to make choices that not only damage his
own life but also result in the greatest tragedy for others. His father, Baba, frequently recognizes instances in
which Amir will not make the brave choice but remain where he is in the safety of a risk-free environment. In
the conversation that Amir overhears between his father and Rahim, Baba states that Amir, who will not stand
up for himself, will eventually not stand up for anything. It is this very characteristic that leads to the
breakdown of the family, with the rape of Hassan and Amir’s failure to intervene. Although Hassan has
consistently protected his friend, Amir chooses to hope for a surface appreciation from his father at the
expense of Hassan. At the risk of losing the kite that he has won in the tournament, Amir stands by and allows
Assef to rape his friend. Not only does this action have consequences for Amir himself, but it sets the stage for
the departure of Hassan and his father from the household. Their banishment causes them to be left behind
during the Russian invasion and subsequent takeover by the Taliban, which results in their murders and the
abduction of Sohrab. The hospital scenes, where Amir is treated following his fight with Assef and Sorhab’s
recovery from his suicide attempt, are the direct results of Amir’s fear.
Although Amir believes that he alone knows that he stood by and allowed Hassan to be raped, the guilt that he
suffers forces him to withdraw from Hassan, eventually lying about the supposed theft of his watch and his
money by Hassan. Though the object of his guilt has been removed, the inner secret continues to eat away for
years to come. Physical pain results whenever anything reminds him of Hassan, who had once been his best
friend. The betrayal of friendship will color every relationship that he has from then on, particularly with his
father as well as with Soraya, his wife. It is only through Rahim, who has known his secret all along, that
Amir may at last find redemption, a “way to be good again.”
The betrayal of Hassan is mirrored in Amir’s life by the feeling of his father’s betrayal by not telling him
that Hassan was his brother. The lecture that Baba gave him once in childhood—that lying was the greatest sin
because it was a theft of many things—leaves Amir unable to forgive his father for the theft of the truth and for
the theft of a brother. Whether or not his childhood choices would be different if he had known is unclear, but
Essential Passages by Character: Amir
24
his focus is on this flaw in his father whom he had for so long tried to please. Only the rescue of Sohrab and
his adoption bring restoration of Amir’s faith in his father.
Amir’s road to redemption is a lifelong process. As philosopher William James says, “When you have to
make a choice, and do not make it, that in itself is a choice.” The choices that Amir made, beginning in his
childhood, show what he truly is. Total redemption is not possible: the dead cannot be saved. However,
through his search for Sohrab and bringing him home, Amir manages to make peace with himself.
Essential Passages by Theme: Friendship
Essential Passage 1: Chapter 7
Then I was screaming, and everything was color and sound, everything was alive and good. I
was throwing my free arm around Hassan and we were hopping up and down, both of us
laughing, both of us weeping. “You won, Amir agha! You won!”
“We won! We won!” was all I could say. This wasn’t happening. In a moment, I’d blink and
rouse from this beautiful dream, get out of bed, march down to the kitchen to eat breakfast
with no one to talk to but Hassan. Get dressed. Wait for Baba. Give up. Back to my old life.
Then I saw Baba on our roof. He was standing on the edge, pumping both of his fists.
Hollering and clapping. And that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve
years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last.
But he was doing something now, motioning with his hands in an urgent way. Then I
understood. “Hassan, we—.”
“I know,” he said, breaking our embrace. “Inshallah, we’ll celebrate later. Right now I’m
going to run that blue kite for you,” he said. He dropped the spool and took off running, the
hem of his green chapan dragging in the snow behind him.
“Hassan!” I called. “Come back with it!”
He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped,
turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “For you a thousand times over!” he said.
Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him
smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph.
Summary
Amir has become one of the best kite flyers in Kabul. Throughout the winter months, when there is no school,
Amir participates in the kite flying contests. The purpose of these contests is to have the last surviving kite in
the air, after having sawn through the strings of the other kites. Hassan, as a kite runner, chases the free-flying
kites. Whoever finds these kites gets to keep them as a trophy. In this tournament, Amir at last emerges
victorious, to the pleasure of himself, Hassan, and especially his father, Baba. Earning his father’s pride has
immeasurable effects on Amir, for this is something he has long been seeking. Although often jealous of his
father’s obvious love for Hassan, Amir shares his joy with him. Together, not Amir alone, they won the
tournament. Hassan’s complete devotion to Amir is evident in his promise, “For you, a thousand times
over.” As he smiles, Amir as the narrator reflects that he will not see that smile again until he is an adult,
looking at a photograph of the then-dead Hassan with his son.
Essential Passage 2: Chapter 7
Essential Passages by Theme: Friendship
25
Even from where I was standing, I could see the fear creeping into Hassan’s eyes, but he
shook his head. “Amir agha won the tournament and I ran this kite for him. I ran it fairly.
This is his kite.”
“A loyal Hazara. Loyal as a dog,” Assef said.
Kamel’s laugh was a shrill, nervous sound
“But before you sacrifice yourself for him, think about this: Would he do the same for you?
Have you ever wondered why he never includes you in games when he has guests? Why he
only plays with you when no one else is around? I’ll tell you why, Hazara. Because to him,
you’re nothing but an ugly pet. Something he can play with when he’s bored, something he
can kick when he’s angry. Don’t ever fool yourself and think you’re something more.”
“Amir agha and I are friends,” Hassan said. He looked flushed.
“Friends?” Assef said, laughing. “You pathetic fool! Someday you’ll wake up from your
little fantasy and learn just how good of a friend he is....”
Summary
Hassan, chasing the kite that Amir cut loose in the tournament, encounters the bully Assef along with two
others. Assef, in his contempt for the Hazara, whom he considers ethnically inferior, demands the kite from
Hassan. To Hassan, however, the kite is a trophy honorably won by his friend, and he refuses to give it up. To
do so would be a betrayal of a friendship. Sensing this, Assef taunts Hassan with Amir’s treatment of him,
sometimes as a friend, other times as a servant. He accurately describes exactly how Amir treats Hassan when
others are present. He speaks enough truth to give Hassan pause. Thinking more of the times when the two of
them are alone, Hassan still believes in Amir’s loyalty and stands firm in his own commitment to serve Amir.
But Assef sees only how Amir treats Hassan in the presence of others, and points out the truth. Yet Hassan
insists that the two are friends. Assef predicts that one day Hassan will realize that Amir is not the friend
Hassan believes him to be. This prediction will come to pass within minutes, as Amir stands by and lets
Hassan be raped.
Essential Passage 3: Chapter 9
Baba came right out and asked. “Did you steal that money? Did you steal Amir’s watch,
Hassan?”
Hassan’s reply was a single word, delivered in a thin, raspy voice: “Yes.”
I flinched, like I’d been slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out the truth. Then I
understood: This was Hassan’s final sacrifice for me. If he’d said no, Baba would have
believed him because we all knew Hassan never lied. And if Baba believed him, then I’d be
the accused; I would have to explain and I would be revealed for what I really was. Baba
would never, ever forgive me. And that led to another understanding: Hassan knew. He knew
I’d seen everything in that alley, that I’d stood there and done nothing. He knew I had
betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time. I loved him in
that moment, loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone, and I wanted to tell them all that I
was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn’t worthy of this sacrifice; I was a
liar, a cheat, and a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that
this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but
life would move on. I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted
Essential Passages by Theme: Friendship
26
to be able to breathe again.
Summary
Since refusing to intervene as Assef raped Hassan, Amir has been heavily burdened with guilt. He will barely
speak to Hassan, and Hassan is incredibly sad and silent. Amir decides that he cannot live with this guilt
anymore, and the only way he can find relief, in his opinion, is to see Hassan go. Following his thirteenth
birthday celebration, Amir hides the watch that was given to him by his father, along with some money, under
Hassan’s pillow. Amir reports to his father that his watch and money are missing and implies that Hassan
might have taken them. Baba confronts Ali, Hassan’s father, and the missing articles are found. Baba asks
Hassan, whom he loves as much as he does Amir, if he took the watch and the money. Hassan confesses to a
crime he did not commit, out of loyalty to Amir, a friend whom he knows has betrayed him. Amir finds that
the guilt has not lifted, yet he has hopes that it will in the future. He envisions that Baba will dismiss Ali and
Hassan, hurt by their “betrayal” of his trust, and Amir will have the sole love of his father. Amir is shocked to
find that Baba forgives Hassan, yet Ali states that they can no longer live there and must leave. This drives an
even bigger wedge between Amir and his father, something he had not counted on.
Analysis of Essential Passages
The relationship between Amir and Hassan is problematic for Amir on many levels. First, Hassan is a Hazara,
which is a despised ethnic group in Afghanistan. The racial differences prevent Amir from fully
acknowledging Hassan as his friend in public, though he values his friendship in the lonely house, where it is
only the two of them who enjoy each other’s company and share their hopes and dreams. In the company of
others, Amir feels compelled to treat Hassan as a servant, which he indeed is, along with his father Ali. The
relationship between master and servant thus stands as a further roadblock on Amir’s acceptance of Hassan’s
friendship. On a more personal level, Amir is jealous of the obvious love that Baba has for Hassan. It is only
many years later that Amir discovers that Hassan is in fact Baba’s illegitimate son, though neither Amir nor
Hassan know this at the time.
While Amir has difficulties defining his friendship with Hassan, Hassan does not. From the beginning, Amir
was his best friend, no matter what the circumstances. Amir’s name was the first word that Hassan spoke, and
he is the first thing that Hassan thinks of every day and in every situation. The fact that he is Amir’s servant
blends perfectly into Hassan’s concept of friendship. To be a friend is to be a servant. Whatever Amir would
ask, that is what Hassan would do. Though Amir does not completely understand this, he accepts it.
The crucial moment between the two comes during the kite tournament. Flushed with victory, Amir is at last
able to accept Hassan as his friend, willing to share his triumph with him, knowing that he is at last the object
of pride of his father. No longer jealous of Hassan, his sense of security in his father’s love enables him to
accept the friendship of Hassan and return it with his own. However, this lasts only for a minute. When Amir
has the choice between friendship and betrayal, he chooses betrayal. Rather than stand alongside and protect
Hassan, as Hassan has done for him on numerous occasions, Amir remains silent. Out of fear, he dares not
face the bully Assef. Selfishly, he allows Hassan to be raped so that Assef will let him to keep the kite. The
kite is a symbol of his triumph. He hopes the prize will increase his father’s pride in him.
Hassan’s friendship is based on self-sacrifice. Like a lamb allowing itself to be led to slaughter, Hassan
submits to Assef’s abuse, rather than risk the loss of the kite for Amir. In the same way, he sacrifices his own
honor in Baba’s eyes, as well as his lifelong home, by confessing to the theft of Amir’s watch and
money. He knows he did not do it, and he knows that Amir knows he did not do it. To save Amir’s
relationship with his father, Hassan sacrifices his own.
Amir’s search for Hassan’s son is an attempt “to be good again,” to regain the honor that Hassan had in his
self-sacrifice. He cannot heal the wounds that he inflicted on Hassan, but he can endeavor to gain redemption
by sacrificing himself in his search for Sohrab. By taking him into his home, by acknowledging the
Essential Passages by Theme: Friendship
27
relationship between the two, he places himself into a status of friendship with Sohrab, to whom he pledges,
as did Hassan to him, “for you, a thousand times over.”
The Kite Runner: Themes
Identity and Self-Discovery
Throughout the novel, the protagonist struggles to find his true purpose and to forge an identity through noble
actions. Amir's failure to stand by his friend at a crucial moment shapes this defining conflict. His endeavor to
overcome his own weaknesses appears in his fear of Assef, his hesitation to enter a war-torn country ruled by
the repressive Taliban, and even his carsickness while driving with Farid into Afghanistan. Late in the novel,
Amir discovers his father's lifelong deception about his half brother Hassan, a revelation that leads to a deeper
understanding of who his father was and how he and his father had both betrayed the people who were loyal
to them.
Family, Fathers, and Fatherhood
In this novel in which family relationships play a great part, mothers are strikingly absent. Although Soraya is
a loving mother to Sohrab, Amir and Hassan grow up without their mothers. Meanwhile, the tension of
father-son relationships is exemplified by Baba's treatment of his sons, Amir and Hassan. While Baba is
disappointed in Amir's bookish, introverted personality, to protect his social standing, he does not publicly
acknowledge his illegitimate son Hassan whose mother is a Hazara. Likewise, General Taheri is a traditional,
highly critical father who chafes at his grown daughter's sometimes rebellious attitudes. The theme re-emerges
in the marriage of Amir and Soraya, who try unsuccessfully to start a family of their own. Their adoption of
the troubled and parentless Sohrab at the end of the novel marks an attempt to recreate a complete family
based on relationships of love and honesty.
Journey and Quest
A novel of immigration and political unrest, The Kite Runner is punctuated by Amir's departure from
Afghanistan as a teenager and his return to his war-ravaged home country as an adult. At the same time, it is a
novel of symbolic quest. Amir makes great sacrifices to pursue his quest to atone for past sins by rescuing his
half nephew. Symbolized by the bleeding fingers of kite-fighters who cut their competitors'kites out of the sky
with string embedded with glass, sacrifice is an important theme of the novel. Near the beginning of the novel,
Amir willingly cut his fingers to impress his father with a kite-fighting victory; at the end he cuts his fingers
flying a kite to revive his spiritually wounded nephew from a profound depression. Whereas the young Amir
compares Hassan's resignation to his attackers'assault to the resignation of a sacrificed animal, by the end of
the novel, Amir is prepared to sacrifice much in order to save Hassan's son from a similar fate.
Heritage and Ancestry
Before leaving Afghanistan, Baba fills a snuff box with soil from his homeland. As refugees in the United
States, Baba and Amir live in an Afghan immigrant community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Even though
much of the action takes place in the United States, most of the characters there are Afghan, emphasizing how
Amir and Baba thrive in and contribute to an immigrant community that reminds them of home. Although
Baba dies without ever seeing his home country again, Amir maintains his ties to the Afghan community in
Northern California, partly through his wife's family. Descriptions of Amir and Soraya's courtship and Baba's
funeral exemplify such ties to traditional cultural values. The reader is treated to detailed accounts of the
khastegari tradition in which the groom's father requests permission of the prospective bride's father, and the
The Kite Runner: Themes
28
elaborate traditional ceremony in which Amir and Soraya are married. Although Amir first views living in the
United States as a way to forget a painful past, he maintains and revives his ties to Afghan culture and
religion. He returns to his country of birth and, after his nephew attempts suicide, re-discovers Islam as a
source of strength. The narration and dialogue welcome
the reader into this ethnic Pashtun and Afghan national identity through running translations of frequently
spoken or culturally significant phrases and concepts.
Assimilation and Acculturation
From the early twentieth century to contemporary times, new arrivals to the United States have lived and
worked in their new homeland, attempting to lead better lives and simultaneously struggling to adjust to a
culture that may or may not accept their traditions. When Amir and Baba arrive in Fremont, California, they,
too, must start new lives. While Baba works at a humble job in a service station, Amir attends school,
graduating from high school at the age of twenty. While Baba (like General Taheri, a man of his generation)
dreams of returning to Afghanistan in better times, Amir who has spent much of his teenage years in the
United States, adjusts more readily to his new country. For Amir, as for many in the literature of the American
immigrant experience, the United States represents a space for new beginnings and a way to erase a dark,
violent past. For Baba, the transition is more difficult, and his new life presents a painful contrast with his
former position of power and prestige in Kabul.
Political Power/Abuse of Power
The events of the novel occur against the backdrop of political change, culminating in the rise of the
tyrannical Taliban government in contemporary Afghanistan. Assef, Hassan's rapist and the bully who
becomes a high-ranking Taliban official, embodies the consequences of the abuse of power for power's sake
and the violence and repression of the Taliban regime. Assef is a sociopath who thrives in an atmosphere of
chaos and subjugation. Interpersonal violence leads to the split between Amir and Hassan; on a national scale,
the abuse of power by the Soviet-backed Communist regime in Afghanistan forces Baba and Amir to go into
exile. The abuse of political and social power also appears in frequent references to the Hazara people, who
are second-class citizens in the quasi-caste system of Afghanistan. At the beginning of the novel, Hazara
characters such as Hassan's father Ali suffer public humiliation for their appearance. When General Taheri
demands an explanation for Amir and Soraya's adoption of a Sohrab, "a Hazara boy," he echoes the
discrimination against this entire ethnic minority. Likewise, he gives voice to this attitude when he attacks
Amir for having a Hazara boy for a playmate. In a sense, even Baba condones systematic discrimination
against Hazara people by refusing to acknowledge his son with a Hazara woman, Sanaubar.
The Kite Runner: Style
Flashback and Foreshadowing
Khaled Hosseini frequently uses flashback and foreshadowing. Indeed, most of the novel, which begins in
2001 and ends in 2002, is an elaborate flashback that brings the reader from the narrator's childhood to his
young adulthood to his manhood. Within this overarching structure, Hosseini's use of time devices provide the
reader and the narrator with information about what has happened outside the action of the novel so far, as in
Chapter 16, in which Rahim Khan updates Amir on what has happened to Hassan since Amir and Baba left
Kabul, or in Hassan's letter, in which some of the same events are told from a different point of view.
The use of time devices like foreshadowing may also prepare the reader for an imminent event or crisis. For
Heritage and Ancestry
29
example, during a description of Hassan's face in Chapter 7, the narrator breaks into the description to tell the
reader that this was the last time he would see Hassan's smile except in a photograph, an interruption of the
forward narrative that warns the reader that something momentous is in the offing. Sometimes the use of these
techniques appears to signal moments when the lives of individuals are changed forever by violence, death, or
the consequences of world events. One example occurs in Chapter 22, when Amir, seated in the house of the
Taliban official, nervously eats a grape from a bowl on the table. Amir remarks, "The grape was sweet. I
popped another one in [my mouth], unaware that it would be the last bit of solid food I would eat for a long
time," thus preparing the reader for the violence of the imminent confrontation between Amir and Assef.
Foreshadowing also plays a part in Chapter 7 when Amir witnesses the attack on Hassan on the night of his
victory in the kite tournament:
I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to
be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he'd stood up for me all those
times in the past—and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run.
This internal monologue hints that in the future Amir will suffer from a crisis in identity. Later in the novel,
his failure to stand up for Hassan in his moment of need becomes a burden he carries for much of his life, and
forces Amir to take drastic measures to recover his sense of himself as a good person.
Diction
The dialogue, or quoted conversation between characters, and the narration use a variety of modes to affect
the reader. The diction ranges from detailed description to conversational. One feature of the novel's use of
language is its frequent references to Afghan culture and its use of terms from Pashtu and Farsi that denote
important concepts in Afghan tradition and in the lives of the Afghan community in the San Francisco Bay
Area. Such terms are nearly always translated for non-Pashtu- and non-Farsi-speaking readers in a way that
invites the reader to become familiar with Afghan culture while remaining engaged in the flow of action. The
writing is peppered with words in Farsi and Dari (which is the version of Farsi commonly spoken in
Afghanistan), followed by brief translations set off by commas. In addition to the oftheard greeting Salaam
Aleikum and the oath inshallah, the reader learns the meanings of such expressions as ihtiram (respect); nazar
(the evil eye); lotfan (please); yateem (orphans); and zendagi migzara (life goes on). For example, when Amir
asks his father to ask Soraya's father for permission for Amir and Soraya to marry, in accordance with Afghan
tradition, he says, "I want you to go khastegari. I want you to ask General Taheri for his daughter's hand."
Similarly, when Soraya tells Amir about a secret from her past, he thinks, "I couldn't lie to her and say that my
pride, my iftikhar, wasn't stung at all."
Interior Monologue
Interior monologue, or the words a character uses to describe his or her own feelings to him- or herself, is an
important technique through which Hosseini enables the reader to become acquainted with the narrator Amir,
and through him, the Afghan culture and history that propel much of the action of the story. Internal
monologue is a particularly important device in this work because the action is as much propelled by political
developments as by the protagonist's psychological development.
Imagery and Symbolism
The novel invites the reader to view images and symbols in the first part of the novel as mirrored by those at
the end. For example, the novel is book-ended by two kite contests. The imagery of kite-fighting dominates
the scene that marks the last happy moments Hassan and Amir enjoy together. At the end of the novel, a
smaller kite contest between the adult Amir and a young Afghan American boy, as Sohrab looks on, suggests
Flashback and Foreshadowing
30
redemption for Amir, who has never forgiven himself for what happened to Hassan on the night of that first
kite-fighting contest in Kabul years before. Similarly, Assef's attack on Hassan as the twelve-year-old Amir
looks on is echoed in the battle between the adult Amir and Assef late in the novel
The Kite Runner: Historical Context
The Kite Runner, set in Afghanistan and the United States from the 1970s to 2002, presents a story of
intertwined personal conflicts and tragedies against a historical background of national and cultural trauma.
The early chapters tell much about the richness of Afghan culture as experienced by the young Amir and
Hassan in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The novel's account of the culture of Kabul informs the reader about
everything from the melon sellers in the bazaar to the cosmopolitan social and intellectual lives of Kabul elite
society during the monarchy, to the traditional pastimes of Afghan children. Detailed descriptions treat the
reader to such events as a large extended-family outing to a lake and the annual winter kite tournament of
Kabul. Subsequent political developments, however, appear to curtail these relative freedoms, as first the
Soviet-backed Communist government, then the Northern Alliance, and finally the Taliban progressively
repress the activities of Afghan citizens. The reader learns the effects of the first of these developments
through first-person narration; the effects of the Northern Alliance and of Taliban rule emerge in Rahim
Khan's, Farid's, and Hassan's accounts of Afghan life in the period between the late 1980s and the early 2000s.
Starting in the early chapters of the novel, broad political events such as the revolution that overthrows the
monarchy come to form not just a background for the action, but to become prime movers of the plot. The
sound of gunfire in Chapter 5, for example, initiates a series of political shake-ups that eventually leads to the
Communist takeover of Afghanistan and drives Baba and Amir, along with many of the privileged class, into
exile. In addition, it marks an end to a period that was—despite being marred by the iniquities of the caste
system—relatively idyllic. As Amir observes, "The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know
nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born." This observation foreshadows the traumatized
condition of Amir's nephew Sohrab, born in the midst of violence and orphaned and abused by the Taliban.
The Kite Runner is one of the first works of fiction to include the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United
States within the span of its narrative. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Afghanistan was
portrayed in popular media as a country whose government allowed a terrorist organization to operate within
its borders and committed human rights abuses against its own people. Through a detailed personal narrative,
the novel re-focuses attention on Afghanistan through a different lens, correcting this narrow view of a
country which, despite its problems, has a fascinating history.
Another important historical and cultural context of the novel is the diverse and variegated world of
contemporary multicultural America, particularly in California. Hosseini, the son of a diplomat and a teacher,
left Afghanistan with his family in 1981, much like Amir. Likewise, Amir's experiences in the Afghan
immigrant community of Fremont, California, familiarly known in the San Francisco Bay Area as "Little
Kabul," may reflect the author's experiences of the area from arrival in San Jose in the 1980s. Amir's life as a
young immigrant in the multicultural space of the Bay Area illustrates the increased mixing of diverse
ethnicities in the 1980s and 1990s within U.S. popular culture.
The novel also gives a detailed account of how one ethnic group formed a cultural enclave within American
culture so that its members could help one another and preserve Afghan cultural traditions. Detailed
descriptions in the middle and late chapters give the reader a window on some cultural practices, both formal
and informal, that help define the Afghan community in Fremont. Amir's and Soraya's lives are certainly
taken up with the broader American culture. Both attend public schools and (we presume) mix with
non-Afghan students; Amir takes creative writing classes in which he must read about the experiences of a
diverse group of young writers; and Soraya has a career as a writing instructor at a community college. Still
their identities as Afghans or Afghan Americans are defined in part by the ceremonies and practices of their
Imagery and Symbolism
31
families and their community. The Saturday swap meets, for example, exemplify the well-documented
strategy of immigrant groups to adapt already existing institutions in the United States as ways to preserve
their cultures of origin.
The Kite Runner: Critical Overview
The Kite Runner was published in 2003 to nearly unanimous praise. Said to be the first novel written in
English by an Afghan, the novel was instantly popular. Its first printing was fifty thousand copies, it has been
featured on the reading lists of countless book clubs, and foreign rights to the novel have been sold in at least
ten countries.
Reviewers admired the novel for its straightforward storytelling, its convincing character studies, and for its
startling account of the human toll of the violence that has accompanied Afghanistan's turbulent political
scene in the last thirty years. In his review in World Literature Today, Ronny Noor remarks, "This lucidly
written and often touching novel gives a vivid picture of not only the Russian atrocities but also those of the
Northern Alliance and the Taliban." A brief review in Publishers Weekly credited the novel with providing
"an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the
Middle East," and called it "a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a
previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium." The
novel was noted for its detailed portrayal of a friendship between two boys that tenuously spans class and
ethnic lines. In the New York Times Book Review, Edward Hower praises the novel for its detailed
descriptions of life in Kabul in the 1970s: "Hosseini's depiction of pre-revolutionary Afghanistan is rich in
warmth and humor but also tense with the friction of different ethnic groups." Hower also notes how the class
distinctions between Amir and Hassan make their relationship all the more vulnerable: "Amir is served
breakfast every morning by Hassan; then he is driven to school in a shiny Mustang while his friend stays
home to clean the house."
A few noted with misgiving that the novel occasionally strays from the conventions of realism in
contemporary fiction. Hower notes, "When Amir meets his old nemesis, now a powerful Taliban official, the
book descends into some plot twists better suited to a folk tale than a modern novel." Like Hower, Rebecca
Stuhr of the Library Journal focuses on the late chapters in pointing out the novel's "over-reliance on
coincidence." In an otherwise glowing review in the Times Literary Supplement, James O'Brien points out that
"When Hosseini strays from the simple narrative style he prefers, he struggles to retain credibility." Noor
argued that the novel gives "a selective, simplistic, even simple-minded picture" of the ongoing Afghan
conflict, in particular an overly optimistic view of Hamid Karzai's ability to govern Afghanistan. Overall,
reviewers see the novel as a great triumph marred only by rare stylistic flaws.
The Kite Runner: Criticism
Maria Elena Caballero-Robb
Maria Elena Caballero-Robb
Maria Elena Caballero-Robb earned her Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of California,
Santa Cruz. She works in publishing and teaches courses in U.S. literature and culture and composition. In
this essay, Caballero-Robb interprets Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner as a work that intertwines the private
and public realms of experience.
The Kite Runner: Historical Context
32
Perhaps what garnered Hosseini's first novel, The Kite Runner, so much early praise, aside from the political
relevance of its subject matter when the book was published in 2003, is its successful intertwining of the
personal and the political. The novel has an ambitious agenda: to sketch the maturation of its protagonist from
a callow boy beguiled by mythical stories of heroes and to portray the political situation of contemporary
Afghanistan. The novel begins to show how the personal and the political affect one another through the
peculiar relationship between Amir and Hassan. Indeed, James O'Brien, in his review in the Times Literary
Supplement, argues, "this muddled, unbalanced and ultimately tragic relationship" between the privileged
Amir and the servant Hassan "lies at the heart of The Kite Runner and echoes the betrayals and power shifts
that begin to shape the country shortly after the story begins." Through the course of the novel, Amir's
personal quest takes him on a decades-long journey from his birth country to the United States and finally
back to his country of origin. In passing through this transforming crucible, Amir not only atones for past
personal failings but also embraces a hopeful ideal of citizenship capable of upholding principles of liberty
and human rights even in the face of repressive, fascist systems.
In the first several chapters, the novel's action revolves around the relationship between Amir and his friend
and servant Hassan, and Amir's constant attempts to earn the respect and love of his father, Baba. Amir
describes Hassan as a wise innocent, incapable of deceit, yet uncannily perceptive. Hassan's character and
unschooled intelligence are apparent in his complete loyalty to Amir and his ability to perceive things about
Amir that not even Amir is aware of: "Hassan couldn't read a first-grade textbook, but he could read me
plenty." Indeed, critic Melissa Katsoulis points out in her review in the Times (London), "Though Hassan
cannot read or write, he loves to hear Amir read aloud and is perfectly capable of pointing out the gaping hole
in Amir's first attempt at plotting a story." Hassan is also admired for his physical talents—a faultless aim with
a slingshot and the ability to predict where a loose kite will drift "as if he had some sort of inner compass."
Baba's unusually high regard for his son's servant makes Amir, who cannot seem to please his father, jealous.
When Baba pays for an operation to correct Hassan's harelip and dotes on the boy during his recovery, Amir
thinks, "I wished I too had some kind of scar that would beget Baba's sympathy. It wasn't fair. Hassan hadn't
done anything to earn Baba's affections; he'd just been born with that stupid harelip." Meanwhile, Amir is
acutely aware that there is little understanding between himself and his father: "The least I could have done
was to have had the decency to have turned out a little more like him." He senses that his father blames him
for his mother's death in childbirth; and to compound matters, he overhears his father remark to Rahim Khan,
"If I hadn't seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I'd never believe he's my son."
While the dynamics of these relationships remain central to the story, in later chapters, the political events
outside the limits of the family circle propel the story's action. The first hint of this transition occurs when
Amir and Hassan have an encounter with a violent older boy named Assef, who wants to persecute Hassan for
being a Hazara. Assef, who believes Hitler was an ideal leader, tells Amir that he is betraying his Pashtun
heritage by treating a Hazara boy as his close friend. While Assef's bigotry outrages Amir, Amir is unable to
think of a response. Ultimately, Hassan stands up to Assef and his lackeys; when Assef and his lackeys
threaten to hurt the two younger boys, it is Hassan, not Amir, who saves them both by using his slingshot to
drive the bullies away.
The boys'second encounter with Assef is much less victorious. Ironically, the encounter occurs immediately
after Amir wins the kite-running tournament, which Amir believes is his chance finally to live up to his
father's expectations:
There was no other viable option. I was going to win, and I was going to run that last kite.
Then I'd bring it home and show it to Baba. Show him once and for all that his son was
worthy. Then maybe my life as a ghost in this house would finally be over. I let myself
dream: I imagined conversation and laughter over dinner instead of silence broken only by the
clinking of the silverware and the occasional grunt.
Maria Elena Caballero-Robb
33
The novel's frequent reference to the Afghan heroic tale, the Shahnammah, implicitly creates a comparison
between Amir's relationship with his father and the larger-than-life interactions between the father-and-son
warriors Rostam and Sohrab in the myth. When Amir wins the kite tournament, he begins to think of his
anticipated reunion with his father in mythical terms:
In my head, I had it all planned: I'd make a grand entrance, a hero, prized trophy in my
bloodied hands. Heads would turn and eyes would lock. Rostam and Sohrab sizing each other
up. A dramatic moment of silence. Then the old warrior would walk to the young one,
embrace him, acknowledge his worthiness.
The additional stakes of the kite tournament—the need not just to obtain the last fallen kite, but to win his
father's love—compound the dilemma Amir faces when he finds Hassan being threatened by Assef and the
other bullies in an alley. While Amir chooses to run, out of fear rather than to help his friend, he wonders
whether he has actually sacrificed his friend for his own ends. Even as Amir sees that Hassan is in danger, he
is also focused on the coveted blue kite: "Hassan was standing at the blind end of the alley in defiant stance….
Behind him, sitting on piles of scrap and rubble, was the blue kite. My key to Baba's heart." Although he is
horrified at what happens to Hassan, he allows his friend to become a casualty of his quest to improve his
relationship with his father. Amir's actions mirror the ethnic inequalities between Pashtuns and Hazara that are
reflected in a dozen daily occurrences in the first several chapters. He uses Hassan as an instrument to achieve
a desired end. Amir's failure to treat his playmate as a person marks the fatal character flaw that the adult
Amir will seek to remedy.
The adult Amir moves to remedy this failure by accepting the mission to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, from an
uncertain end. Amir redeems himself by confronting Assef and assuming responsibility for Hassan's child.
The climax of the novel parallels the earlier violent crisis in which Assef rapes Hassan, but offers a victorious
outcome. The battle between Amir and Assef presents Amir with the belated opportunity to fight as he
believes he should have fought to save Hassan when they were children. By risking his life to save Hassan's
child from a sadistic pedophile, Amir begins to atone for his earlier inhumanities.
Throughout the novel, the author uses corresponding symbols and images to emphasize the way that Amir's
adult choices are belated remedies of past failures. After the climactic fight with Assef during his rescue of
Sohrab, Amir is taken to a hospital in Pakistan with serious injuries. While he recovers, he discovers that his
upper lip has been split clear up to the gum line, forming a harelip similar to the one Hassan was born with.
Echoing an earlier scene in a hospital, in which the twelve-year-old Hassan recovers from an operation to
mend his harelip, the adult Amir must wait for his own split lip to mend and quickly learns that it hurts to
smile. This simultaneously reminds the reader of the moment when Amir sees Hassan smile for the last time.
The reader may view Amir's injury as a moment of belated sympathy between two brothers now separated not
only by geographic distance and differing fortunes, but also by death.
The novel's use of literary techniques contributes to a political statement about the relationship between
individuals and systems—or the capacities of individuals to combat broad injustice in political systems. The
Kite Runner turns on more than one astounding coincidence: when Amir returns to Kabul, he meets a beggar
who turns out to have known Amir's mother; and, most startling, Assef, the childhood bully, turns out to be
the prominent Taliban official who has kidnapped and brutalized Hassan's son Sohrab. While Rebecca Stuhr
of the Library Journal finds fault with the novel's "over-reliance on coincidence," Hosseini's use of the device
shows how even personal conflicts like Amir's lifelong struggle with his own guilt are intertwined with world
events. This narrative twist also emphasizes the interplay between the present and the past—"the past claws its
way out"—by showcasing the way that the deeds of childhood cast their shadows into adulthood. (In a similar
vein, the author's use of foreshadowing sometimes signals to the reader that an imminent event will have
lasting consequences, as when Amir plants money in Hassan's room in order to implicate him in a theft.)
Maria Elena Caballero-Robb
34
That Amir's former nemesis turns out to be the Taliban official from whom he must rescue Sohrab lends an
allegorical and mythical dimension to the battle between the two men. As a young boy, Assef is already
described as "a sociopath;" an admirer of Hitler, Assef displays fascist tendencies and openly advocates
removing the Hazara population from Afghanistan. Amir, on the other hand, who is by and large a good boy,
is self-interested and lacks conviction. If the grown Assef appears to be a nearly cartoonish embodiment of
sadism and the desire for absolute power, Amir's struggle to defeat him and save the young Sohrab appears to
be an allegory for a broader struggle for Afghanistan. Whereas Amir had been able to escape the daily
violence of contemporary Afghanistan as a result of his relative privilege, his Hazara friend Hassan had no
choice but to raise his son among a generation of Afghan children, born into a turbulent society, who "know
nothing but the sound of bombs and gunfire."
Interestingly, when Amir, a successful writer, tries to use his privilege to rescue Sohrab by offering Assef
money, he is rebuffed; instead he must put his life at risk in order to complete his mission. Amir's decision to
return to Afghanistan to save the son of his forsaken friend represents a choice for the exiled to return to his
birth country to confront the problems that drove him away. The Kite Runner focuses more on interpersonal
dramas than on political ones; it is a matter of interpretation whether Amir feels responsible for the future of
his birth country in the same way that he feels accountable for his nephew's fate. Still, through Assef's
embodiment of the evil of fascism and Amir's willingness to fight him for a good cause the reader is presented
with a stark contrast between a theocratic regime that starves and crushes the freedoms of its people, and a
reluctant but ultimately courageous citizen willing to risk his life for what he believes in.
Remarkably, the novel does not allude to the enormous controversy that accompanied the aftermath of the
events of September 11, 2001, including the bombing of Afghanistan in retaliation for the Taliban's harboring
of terrorist camps. If one can discern an author's view of politics from his fiction, Hosseini views
developments in Afghan national politics of 2001 and 2002 with some optimism. In the last two chapters, the
narrator speaks warmly of the ousting of the Taliban and the emergence of Hamid Karzai as the new leader of
Afghanistan, and describes the hope with which the imminent Loya jirga, the exiled king's return to
Afghanistan, is anticipated by Afghans and Afghan Americans alike. This optimistic attitude toward
contemporaneous developments in Amir's home country parallels the novel's final flicker of hope regarding
Sohrab. Afghanistan, the novel seems to argue, so recently brutalized and repressed, may yet survive.
Source: Maria Elena Caballero-Robb, Critical Essay on The Kite Runner, in Literary Newsmakers for
Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.
James O'Brien
James O'Brien
In the following review, O'Brien discusses the author's use of voice, and how the two main characters reflect
the character of Afghanistan itself.
Rare is the exiled author whose remembrances of home resist becoming rose-tinted as the years pass. Given
the ravages visited on Afghanistan since the young Khaled Hosseini and his family sought political asylum in
the United States in 1980, the foremost of many triumphs in this startling first novel must be that its
consideration of cultural, religious and deeply personal upheavals remains cool and considered throughout.
Hosseini's own profession—he is a doctor—perhaps provides a more convincing explanation of his narrator's
unemotional tone than the fictional claim that he has become an English-language author of some repute.
Amir is twelve when the novel begins in 1975, but the seeds of his story were sown much earlier. He "killed"
his mother in childbirth and, a bookish, somewhat sickly child, has done little since to earn either affection or
James O'Brien
35
respect from his father. Amir's only solace is Hassan, his hare-lipped servant and best friend. It is this
muddled, unbalanced and ultimately tragic relationship that lies at the heart of The Kite Runner and echoes the
betrayals and power shifts which begins to shape the country shortly after the story begins.
The two boys suckled at the same breast—it belonged to a wet nurse; Hassan's mother quit her humdrum
existence in search of glamour shortly after Amir's quit this life altogether—and so forged a bond which
Afghans believe to be unbreakable. Their early life was idyllic, with only the uncaring shadow of Amir's Baba
blighting their days of storytelling, fruit-gathering and kite-running. In Kabul, the kite strings are laced with
glass to slice all-comers from the skies until just one remains aloft. Hassan is the finest kite-runner in Kabul,
with an unerring ability to predict the progress of these wind-borne tissue creations. It is a gift which proves of
little use when Amir, confused, embittered and convinced of his servant's elevated status in Baba's affections,
sets about severing ties of a different kind.
The exposure of Amir's myriad failings is brought starkly home in a scene of breathtaking brutality when he is
too cowardly to stop the punishment inflicted on Hassan. This constitutes one of the book's few flaws. When
Hosseini strays from the simple narrative style he prefers, he struggles to retain credibility and, on occasion,
leaves Amir sounding like Kabul's half-baked answer to Holden Caulfield: "That was the thing with Hassan.
He was so goddamn pure, you always felt like a phony around him". These lapses are rare, and for the most
part the story of Amir's grand betrayal of Hassan and his painful search for redemption across generations is
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.
From exile in America to a clandestine return to Kabul in the grip of the Taleban, the narrative ranges freely
across the globe engaging the reader's emotions. Amir is a difficult hero, largely unlovable but utterly
sympathetic, while the plight of blameless Hassan reflects the fate of his country. There are history lessons
here; among the deepest of Afghanistan's wounds is the fact that its past has been largely obscured by its
bloody present. There are also questions. Is any bond truly unbreakable? Can sons atone for the sins of
fathers?
Source: James O'Brien, "The Sins of the Father," in Times Literary Supplement, October 10, 2003, p. 25.
Ronny Noor
Ronny Noor
In the following essay, Noor reviews The Kite Runner as a novel about sin and redemption, but contends that
it fails to give a complete picture of the Afghan conflict.
The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini's best-selling first novel. It is the very first novel in English by an
Afghan, in which a thirty-eight-year-old writer named Amir recounts the odyssey of his life from Kabul to
San Francisco via Peshwar, Pakistan. The protagonist was born into a wealthy family in Kabul. Raised by his
father, his mother having passed away during his birth, Amir lives a relatively happy life until the Soviet tanks
roll into Afghanistan. Then he and his family flee to Pakistan and end up in America. In the United States, his
father becomes a gas-station manager, selling junk on weekends with his son at the San Jose flea market.
Amir meets Soraya, the daughter of a former Afghan general, and soon ties the knot with her.
For fifteen years the young couple tries in vain to have children. Then Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan,
a friend and former business partner of his now-deceased father. Amir flies to Peshwar to meet with him.
Rahim Khan reveals that Hassan, Amir's childhood friend, the presumed son of the family servant Ali, was in
reality Amir's half-brother, his father's illegitimate son with Ali's wife. Hassan and his wife were killed by the
James O'Brien
36
Taliban. Rahim Khan wants Amir to go to Kabul and bring Hassan's son to Peshwar. After much hesitation,
Amir goes to Kabul and frees his nephew from the clutches of an unscrupulous child molester. Later he brings
the child to America for adoption.
This lucidly written and often touching novel gives a vivid picture of not only the Russian atrocities but also
those of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. It is rightly a "soaring debut," as the Boston Globe claims, but
only if we consider it a novel of sin and redemption, a son trying to redeem his father's sin. As far as the
Afghan conflict is concerned, we get a selective, simplistic, even simple-minded picture. Hosseini tells us, for
example, that "Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis" were behind the Taliban. He does not mention the CIA or
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor to President Carter, "whose stated aim," according to
Pankaj Mishra in the spring 2002 issue of Granta, "was to'sow [s—t] in the Soviet backyard.'"
Hosseini also intimates that the current leader handpicked by foreign powers, Hamid Karzai—whose "caracul
hat and green chapan became famous"—will put Afghanistan back in order. Unfortunately, that is all Karzai is
famous for—his fashion, Hollywood style. His government does not control all of Afghanistan, which is torn
between warlords as in the feudal days. Farmers are producing more opium than ever before for survival. And
the occupying forces, according to human-rights groups, are routinely trampling on innocent Afghans. There
is no Hollywood-style solution to such grave problems of a nation steeped in the Middle Ages, is there?
Source: Ronny Noor, "Afghanistan: The Kite Runner," in World Literature Today, Vol. 78, No. 3-4,
September-December 2004, p. 148.
Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini
In the following excerpt, Hosseini discusses how being a physician gives him a compassionate insight to
humanity and makes him a better writer.
Khaled Hosseini. (Physician writers)
A blinking little red light. Another voice mail. Didn't I just go through them? I sat down. I never delay
listening to voice mails; call it a compulsion, a personal quirk.
I put down Mrs CR's chart and dialed my answering machine. It was my father-in-law, telling me he had
loved my short story, The Kite Runner, but wished it had been longer. At some point between the instant I put
down the receiver and the moment I knocked on the door to tell Mrs CR about her diabetic nephropathy, a
seed planted itself in my mind: I was going to turn The Kite Runner into a novel.
And so it began. For the next 15 months, I tapped away at the keyboard. I created a troubled, 12-year-old boy
named Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy Pashtun merchant living in Kabul, Afghanistan, circa 1975, and
his angelic friend Hassan, a minority Hazara and the son of Amir's crippled servant. I developed a deep and
unusual friendship between the boys, only to make Amir betray Hassan in an unspeakable way. I shattered the
boy's lives. I watched the brutalised Hassan pay the price for his guileless devotion to Amir, and watched
Amir grow into a brooding, haunted, guilt-ridden man in the USA. Then I sent Amir back to Kabul, now ruled
by the Taliban, on one last desperate quest for redemption. In June, 2002, The Kite Runner was completed. A
year later, while on a US book tour to promote the novel, two of the most common questions people asked me
were: how do you find time to write as a doctor; and did being a doctor help you writing?
Ronny Noor
37
My day at work ranges from busy to frantic. Between prescription refills, referrals, meetings, laboratory
reviews, voice mails, and seeing patients, I have developed an appreciation for the concept of free time. And
when I go home, I have my wife and two children, not to mention an extended Afghan family life. That leaves
the early morning. My free time. And if there is one thing we doctors have been trained for, it's getting by
with less than ideal hours of sleep. So for 15 months, I woke up at 0500 h, drank cupfuls of black coffee, and
created the world of Amir and Hassan. Luckily for me, the soulful early morning hours coincided with my
creative time.
As for the second question, the answer, surprisingly, is yes. A writer, like a doctor, has to be a good listener
and observer. Whereas a doctor listens to learn about his or her patient, a writer listens and observes to learn
about nuances of dialogue, body language, and the peculiar verbal and non-verbal ways in which people
express themselves. My medical practice provides me with ample opportunity for this sort of observation,
since in a typical working day, I sit and listen to some 20 stories, all told in unique voices. I listen to them as a
doctor and observe them as a writer. Furthermore, it's essential in both crafts to develop some insight into
human nature. Writers and physicians need to understand to some extent the motivations behind behaviour
and appreciate how such things as a person's upbringing, their culture, their biases, shape that person, whether
it be a patient or a character in a story. Writers say the more you understand your characters, the better you
can write them. Similarly, the more doctors understand their patients, the better they can help them.
While on tour, one person raised what seemed a far more important question: did writing help you become a
better doctor? It did. I firmly believe that. The medical profession offers satisfying rewards, but for some the
challenges of today's medicine can prove exhausting, or worse—we have all crossed paths with jaded
colleagues who have long lost sight of the rewards of healing in the rigorous frenzy of daily practice. Writing,
by contrast, is creative. For me, starting the day with an act of creation is therapeutic. It brings me closer to
my emotional state and, as a result, I go to see my patients with a positive frame of mind. To be sure, that's
good for me, but far more importantly, it's good for my patients.
Source: Khaled Hosseini, "Khaled Hosseini: Physician writers," in Lancet, Vol. 362, No. 9388, September
20, 2003, p. 1003.
The Kite Runner: Topics for Further Study
• What would have happened if Amir had fought to rescue Hassan from Assef, instead of running
away? Would Hassan and Ali have moved with Baba and Amir to California? How would the
boys'lives have been different? Create a timeline of events and milestones for each boy as their lives
were presented in the novel, then create a new timeline for each boy to reflect how his life might have
changed if Amir had saved Hassan.
• Return to the middle chapters of the novel, when Amir's wife Soraya interacts with her father and
mother. Think about the ways that traditional Afghan culture, as Hosseini represents it in the novel,
appears to have differing expectations of men and women. How have Soraya Taheri and her mother
Khanum Taheri been affected by the ways that women's behavior is constrained by traditional Afghan
culture? Write a two-page essay in which you discuss how the politics of gender in Afghan culture
affects the characters in the novel, using concrete examples from the book to support your arguments.
• Gather in a small group and study the scene from pages 70 to 79. Then review the confrontation
between Amir and Assef in Chapter 22. How has Amir changed in the years between the early scene
and the later one? Next, think about the letter from Hassan that Rahim Khan presents to Amir.
Suppose Amir wrote a letter in response. As a group, write a one-page letter in which Amir explains
to Hassan how his character, goals, or understanding of the world has changed. Provide specific
details from the novel to support Amir's claims.
Khaled Hosseini. (Physician writers)
38
• Think about Amir's relationship with Baba as it is detailed in Chapter 2 through Chapter 7. Make a list
of the adjectives that describe Amir. Now make a list of adjectives that describe Baba. How are Baba
and Amir alike? How are they different? In a short essay, describe the relationship between Baba and
Amir, giving at least four concrete examples from the novel to support your points.
• Twice in the novel, the character Assef is associated with Adolf Hitler. Research the early
twentieth-century German nationalist movement that led to Nazism. Based on the novel's depiction of
the Taliban regime, make a list comparing and contrasting how citizens responded to the two regimes.
How did Nazism affect Germany from the 1930s to the 1940s? How were the effects of the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s similar or different? Include specific
examples from the novel to support your arguments.
The Kite Runner: Media Adaptations
• Simon and Schuster released the audio book version of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini in 2003.
The author reads the audio book version. In audio form, the novel runs twelve hours and spans eight
cassette tapes or eleven CDs.
The Kite Runner: What Do I Read Next?
• Farah Ahmedi's memoir The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky (2003)
also recounts a childhood in Kabul. Ahmedi, a high school student in Illinois at the time her book was
published, won the opportunity to have her life story published in book form by winning an essay
contest sponsored by the television program Good Morning America. Ahmedi's account of growing
up in Kabul in the 1990s offers a nonfiction version of life in 1970s Kabul sketched in The Kite
Runner. Before coming to the United States, Ahmedi lost her leg to a land mine and lost family
members to a Taliban rocket strike on her home.
• Jessica Hagedorn's novel Dogeaters (1990), though very different from The Kite Runner, tells the
story of a young person's experiences immigrating from the Philippines to the United States. In
Dogeaters the characters struggle to adjust to U.S. culture while maintaining, at times, uneasy ties to
Filipino culture and the turbulent contemporary history of the Philippines.
• Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez: An Autobiography
(1982) recounts the author's experiences as a child in a Mexican immigrant family. Rodriguez's
account of his attempts to bridge the gaps between his adapted culture and language, and his family's
values and language, resonate with the experiences of Amir in The Kite Runner.
• Henri J. Barkey's "The United States and Afghanistan: From Marginality to Global Concern" gives an
account of the post-September 11 relations between the United States and Afghanistan and how the
United States'foreign policy affected twenty-first-century political developments there. Barkey's
article can be found in The Middle East and the United States: A Historical and Political
Reassessment (2003), edited by David W. Lesch.
The Kite Runner: Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
Hosseini, Khaled, The Kite Runner, Riverhead Books, 2003.
Hower, Edward, "The Servant," in the New York Times Book Review, August 3, 2003, p. 4.
Katsoulis, Melissa, "Kites of Passage" in the Times (London), August 30, 2003, Features section, p. 17.
The Kite Runner: Topics for Further Study
39
Noor, Ronny, Review of The Kite Runner, in World Literature Today, Vol. 78, Nos. 3-4,
September-December 2004, p. 148.
O'Brien, James, "The Sins of the Father," in the Times Literary Supplement, October 10, 2003, p. 25.
Review of The Kite Runner, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 250, No. 19, May 12, 2003, p. 43.
Stuhr, Rebecca, Review of The Kite Runner, in Library Journal, April 15, 2003, p. 122.
Hosseini, Khaled, Dreaming in Titanic City, Riverhead Books.
This follow-up to Hosseini's extremely successful first novel is set to be published in 2006.
Further Reading
Lipson, J. G., and P. A. Omidian, "Afghan Refugee Issues in the U.S. Social Environment" in Western
Journal of Nursing Research, Vol. 19, No. 1, February 1997, pp. 110-26.
The article focuses on the physical and mental health challenges faced by Afghan refugees
since they began to arrive in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s. Based on an
ethnographic study and using quotations from interviews with these newcomers, the article
examines stresses caused by the new social contexts within which Afghan refugees find
themselves and how they perceive their interactions with American citizens and institutions.
Ondaatje, Michael, Anil's Ghost, Vintage Books, 2000.
In Ondaadtje's fifth novel, the protagonist Anil Tessera is a Sri Lankan forensic
anthropologist educated in England and the United States, who returns to work in Sri Lanka.
In the course of uncovering gruesome evidence of violence wrought by the civil war there,
she re-connects with centuries of Sri Lankan tradition and is confronted with the senseless
destruction brought about by interethnic conflict in the country of her birth.
Payant, Katherine B., and Toby Rose, eds., The Immigrant Experience in North American Literature: Carving
Out a Niche, 2003.
This book contains a collection of essays by various scholars who discuss the ways that North
American literature has represented the experiences of immigrant groups entering and
becoming acculturated to the United States. Essays include discussions of such authors as
Anzia Yezierska to Jamaica Kincaid.
Rashid, Ahmed, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Yale University Press,
2000.
Ahmed, a journalist in Afghanistan for over twenty years, sketches the Taliban's rise to power
between 1994 to 1999, as well as other countries'attempts to gain control over the
development of Afghanistan. His account discusses the Taliban's ideological foundations, its
well-known repression of women, and its ties to the heroin trade.
Sources
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Copyright
Copyright
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