What does a successful doctor of internal medicine living in the Bay Area have in common with a kid flying a kite in Kabul, Afghanistan? Dr. Khaled Hosseini WAS the kid in Kabul, for one.
I had the privilege of interviewing Hosseini in April, 2004 before he embarked on a
…more demanding book tour of the U.S. and several other countries, where his novel is making quite an impression. Who knew? The popularity of kite flying around the world may have helped Hosseini with the warm reception of his very poignant story of Amir and his Hazara servant, Hassan. The two Afghan boys struggle with their caste roles in Kabul society and find themselves bound together over years and oceans, even beyond death.
Khaled, whose family was given political asylum in America in 1980, created his young protagonist Amir to reflect his own experiences to a fair extent, he admits. And the colorful, vibrant kite-flying images held in his mind and heart since childhood definitely inspired him to write this book.
Khaled compared the scars of Afghan-style kite-flying (where strings are coated with crushed glass to “cut” down other kites) to young American scrapes from skateboarding or other outdoor activities. He explained that “every boy was outside flying kites in winter, as common as playing catch here. In winter, we had no school, so we were always out in the cold wind with our kites.”
Coining the term “kite runner,” Khaled refers to Amir’s young servant and companion Hassan, who runs to catch the other boys’ kites as Amir cuts them down. A winning duo, these boys grow to test each others’ integrity in heart-stirring and surprising ways.
Early in the book, Amir is often challenged by Hassan’s unruffled loyalty. Amir later remembers Hassan’s haunting rebuke, “…that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
Khaled’s story traces the harsh realities of the Afghan people through these two young men. One comes to America, but the other stays behind to create a startling legacy for his friend to find decades later. The journey back to one’s native country after devastation by warring factions is not a pleasant one. Khaled Hosseini has personally discovered this reality, as well.
In 2003, he returned to Afghanistan and was powerfully affected. He plans to return again to gather material for another book. He has no family in his native land; they’ve all emigrated to California. Though happy to be in America, he feels for Afghanistan. Turmoil wrought by the former Soviet Union’s invasion and eight-year occupation, plus the subsequent Taliban rule gravely damaged his native country.
Khaled admitted a small faction of Afghan expatriates has reacted negatively to his book. But he felt he must show truth in his writing, unlike the “glorified” version some would prefer. Khaled believes he wrote “what every Afghan knows is true, but is taboo to speak openly about.” He refused to write what he calls propaganda. What nerve, he remonstrated to me, that some fellow Afghans consider “all the pillaging, raping and ethnic cleansing done by Afghans themselves between 1992-1996 as nothing – but [my book] The Kite Runner is so bad?!”
Obviously hitting home, striking nerves and flying in the face of adversity, Khaled Hosseini’s book is already published in ten nations now, with nine more to be added in the near future. Academy Award-winning Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) has purchased film rights to Khaled’s novel for a proposed Dreamworks Pictures film. A bit wary, perhaps, but certainly excited by the prospect, Khaled will be busy as a technical consultant when production begins.
Interestingly, Khaled Hosseini grew up enjoying American western movies in Kabul, like The Magnificent Seven. He does not write using traditional outlines; instead he “sees each scene as in a movie,” then writes and watches it come to life.
In the book’s opening chapter, Khaled’s protagonist, now an adult in America, receives a phone call from an old family friend living (and dying) in Pakistan. His last request takes Amir back to Afghanistan, carries him through disturbing nostalgiac scenes and catapults him through danger he has only heard about from more recent refugees. By the novel’s end, Amir returns wounded and wiser to his American way of life.
Khaled’s powerful writing provokes a stark comparative reality when the old man comments to the visiting Amir, “I see America has infused you with the optimism that has made her so great…We’re a melancholic people, we Afghans…we wallow too much…we give in to loss, to suffering, accept it as a fact of life, even see it as necessary.”
But, the kite can only fly when the adverse wind is blowing. A symbol emerges triumphant for Amir, for Khaled Hosseini, for all of us. (less)
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