Monday, December 22, 2008

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini


From the website
'A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to the post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love—a stunning accomplishment'

I read this a last month, but hadn't got around to writing about it... It didn't feel like Kite Runner in its urgency to tell the story, but it did suck me in unwittingly the same way that Kite Runner did... What the blurb doesn't say is that its a story of women, and their relationships with the people around them, and each other in such a turbulent environment... It also compelled me to think for a long time about women everywhere and all of the stories that are out there, not yet told... Allowing us to assume that all women have it as easy as they do here... The story did break my heart, definitely emotive stuff.. Characters that made you worry about them, love them and hate them...

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