"The Kite Runner," by Khalid Hosseini

Imagine having everything you’ve ever wanted and being content with your life, but it all suddenly disappears in the blink of an eye. That's what happened to Amir when he lost everything that made him who he was, made his father who he was, and made his father‘s father who he was. To lose it all at once and have to find your way in a foreign country can’t be easy. However, throughout the book we watched how Amir and his father tried to build a new life for themselves away from danger while still trying to maintain their culture that they had brought with them to this foreign land. Khalid Hosseini is an Afghan novelist who was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965. In 1976 the Hosseini family was relocated to Paris by the Foreign Ministry Khalid’s father worked for but when they returned back to Kabul in 1980 they were met with endless fighting and the invasion of the Soviet Army. His family sought political asylum in the United States and moved to California, where he continued high school and later enrolled in Santa Clara University. Hosseini released The Kite Runner in 2003 and has since released multiple hits such as A Thousand Splendid Suns and And the Mountains Echoed. Hosseini is currently a Goodwill ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (khaledhosseini.com). This year marks the 23rd anniversary of The Kite Runner, the book that started it all for Hosseini.

The book starts off in the mid 1960s where we meet Amir, a young Afghan boy who lives with his father and their Hazara servants, Ali and his son Hassan. Although they cannot show it as much in public, Amir and Hassan are the bestest of friends and they get along really well. Amir and Hassan once had the most beautiful friendship until the day of the kite tournament when Amir betrayed Hassan and turned his back on him when he needed him the most. This betrayal damages their friendship immensely and leaves Amir so ridden with guilt that he tells lies about Hassan to get him and his father to leave the house. While this drama within their household is occurring, the Taliban in Afghanistan is only getting stronger and making Afghanistan harder for Amir and his family to live in comfortably. With the fighting and war rapidly escalating in Afghanistan, Amir and his father can no longer stay there as they are not safe and they make their way into the US. Living in the US, Amir and his father hustled day and night to make ends meet. Amir continues his studies and eventually makes it to college where he decides to study literature and he later meets his future wife, Soraya, an Afghan immigrant and daughter of General Taheri. Later in life once Amir establishes a family and is stable in the US, he receives a call from one of his father‘s old friends. After taking the call, Amir must decide whether he will travel back to Afghanistan during dangerous times and finish what he left unfinished or choose to turn a blind eye and forever carry guilt in his heart. At the beginning of the book, Amir is a young boy with a very sensitive heart, and he craves for his father‘s affection and attention. His family is going through a hard time with the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the drama between Hassan and him caused by his betrayal. His family is slowly losing what set them apart from other Afghan families due to the rise of the Taliban. It’s unsafe for him to go outside and he’s starting to be harassed by the Taliban and so is his family, so they make the hard decision of moving to the US. Towards the middle of the book, we see Amir entering life as a young adult who has escaped from the Taliban in Afghanistan, trying to balance between school life, taking care of his father, and creating a life of his own. As he makes his way through America, Amir still holds onto the guilt he feels from his betrayal to Hassan. He realizes that even though time has passed, he has never truly forgiven himself for what he’s done. At the end of the book, we see Amir as a grown man with an established family, who is no longer holding onto the guilt caused by a decision he made while he was still a young boy living in Afghanistan. We see how he no longer craves affection. Instead, he gives it to those around him and he does so loudly and proudly. He makes amends for what he did to Hassan by returning to Afghanistan to rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab. Throughout the book, you can see how Amir’s character has greatly changed. In the beginning, Amir’s father describes him as sensitive or too soft. His father didn’t think that he had what it takes to be a ‘real man’. Amir was constantly running away from his problems, letting other people fight his battles. By the end of the book, we see how Amir learns to fight his own battles and take responsibility for his actions. He becomes the father figure and role model that he admired his father to be.

This book doesn’t shy away from gruesome details and can be a bit graphic. Although the specific details may make you feel uncomfortable it’s important to realize the awareness that this book is bringing, although the book is not based on a true story, this can be somebody’s life right now somewhere out there in the world. There were two specific quotes that stuck with me. The first being something that Amir’s father told him all the time while he grew up and the second being what Hassan said to him. His father told him “There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth.” I interpret this quote as all wrongdoing starts from a lie and when you tell a lie, whether immediately or in the future, you have robbed someone of their happiness and it wasn’t your place to do so. I found it ironic how Amir‘s father always told him that yet he had told Amir the biggest lie of his life. What Hassan said that tugged at my heart was “For you, a thousand times over”. To have someone with such undying loyalty to you by your side is something that is becoming even more rare as time goes by and the fact that Amir had someone like that by his side, and yet still took advantage of that shows that no amount of loyalty could truly stop someone from betraying you. The fact that Hassan was able to forgive Amir and look past what he had done shows how much he truly loved Amir like a brother and I think that’s something that’s so beautiful. The bond between the two boys was something magical and no matter what happened Hassan looked at it the same way, as a relationship between two brothers no matter their status or what happened. Later on when Amir says the same line to Hassan’s son it feels like a full circle moment. Amir wasn’t able to ever return that same amount of loyalty to Hassan but he can make up for it by showing that loyalty to his son. I recommend this book to those who are struggling to get over a major hurdle in their life and are struggling to let go of something that has been weighing them down. This book highlights how no matter how big or small of an issue it may be, it cannot hold you down forever and you will move on and you will heal.