The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Kite Runner is my introduction to Khaled Hosseini, and it’s a good one.

The tale Hosseini weaves is one of sorrow and redemption, primarily set in his native Afghanistan during the fall of the monarchy and the rise of Soviet invasion. Against this backdrop Hosseini creates a relationship between a privileged boy, Amir, in the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, and the boy, Hassan, who lives as the son of a trusted servant/friend of Amir’s father.

Hosseini is an accomplished writer who creates a complex story of violence, betrayal, broken trust, of the labyrinth of familial relationships, of secrets created to protect and which ultimately fail. It is a history of tribal fighting and destructive discrimination. It is a story of failure, of guilt, and in the end, redemption which may leave you weeping. It did me.

And through all this is the theme of competitive kite flying, of glass-imbedded thread which can slice fingers to ribbons. It is a clever and sobering metaphor for innocence in the face of violence.

This is one of those rare books I will procure in hardcover to have a place on my library shelves, a book I will return to again and again as I do with anything by classical writers like Hardy and Conrad. I think you may find The Kite Runner unforgettable.

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