250 pages or less: Worthwhile reads for busy students
Hosseini’s The Kite Runner

-- Patricia Carlberg

Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner (2003) is a must-read as it discusses themes of friendship, love, guilt and shame, and it describes what a person is willing to do for redemption. Hosseini is an American author who was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father worked for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, allowing his family to receive political asylum to the United States in 1980.

The Kite Runner is written in first person with an adult narrator who begins writing about his personal experiences as a 12 year-old boy living in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the fall of the monarchy until the collapse of the Taliban regime. The main character is the narrator who goes by Amir, other characters include the narrator’s father Baba, and the family’s servant Ali and his son a servant boy named Hassan.

Amir and Hassan are best friends in the novel and they enjoy kite running together. Kite running is a national past time in Afghanistan and is enjoyed by most people. The story’s conflict begins when Amir realizes that Hassan is a Hazara. Hazara’s were looked down upon as being lower class. Amir was considered to be Pushtun, a more privileged group of people.

After kite running one day, Hassan tries to retrieve a kite, but ends up being brutally raped in an alley by a Pushtun named Assef. Amir is riddled with guilt because he watched his friend being raped and did nothing to help him. After the incident, the friendship diminishes.

Amir and his father leave for the U.S. because of an impending war with the Soviet Regime, leaving Ali and Hassan behind. Amir tries to bury his memories of guilt and shame of Hassan in San Francisco. However reports of Hassan return to him; he learns that Hassan is actually his half brother and that both Hassan and his wife were killed by the Taliban leaving their only son Sohrab behind. The novel reveals just how far Hassan will ultimately go to bring about his own redemption, so read on and find out!