A Thousand Splendid Suns
Genres and Themes
Similar Books
In The Kite Runner ( ), Khaled Hosseini, a native of Kabul who came to the United States in 1980, depicted boyhood friendship and adult redemption in war-torn Afghanistan. A Thousand Splendid Suns, in chronicling three decades of turmoil leading up to and after the Taliban, again offers a terrifying perspective on Afghan life. Mariam, an illegitimate daughter of a successful businessman, is forced as a teenager to marry an older, brutal man, Rasheed. When Mariam fails to bear children, Rasheed takes an even younger wife, Laila, whose liberal, intellectual parents were killed when the Communists took over Kabul. As the two women forge strong bonds with each other despite their household’s—and society’s—repression and violence, they suffer, sacrifice, and learn to have faith in love and hope.
Riverhead. 384 pages. $25.95. ISBN: 1594489505
Charlotte Observer
"In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini does something highly unusual: He surpasses the power and depth of his first novel, The Kite Runner. … It brings to life a part of the world that the average American knows little about, and makes real for us the very human implications of our foreign policies, long after Afghanistan faded from the headlines." Jean Blish Siers
Chicago Sun-Times
"The violence is as graphic as you would expect in any book that details the atrocities of war. … More than likely, A Thousand Splendid Suns will tear at your heart and make you better understand the legacy of violence our soldiers are fighting against in Afghanistan." Cheryl L. Reed
Los Angeles Times
"Suspended in my otherworldly zone, I discovered the fictional village of Gul Daman, the minarets, bazaars and gardens of Herat, the snowcapped mountains and communal tandoors of Kabul. … [A] worthy sequel to The Kite Runner." Jane Ciabattari
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"The texture of these characters’ journey around the craters of their country is no doubt well known to readers of international news. Rendered as fiction in A Thousand Splendid Suns, however, it devastates in a new way." John Freeman
San Francisco Chronicle
"Readers will also gain a better understanding of the effects of what Hosseini calls the ‘cultural vandalism’ of the Taliban, which shattered Afghanistan’s arts and culture, and the devastating impacts of Shariah law on women’s lives. … Hosseini’s bewitching narrative captures the intimate details of life in a world where it’s a struggle to survive, skillfully inserting this human story into the larger backdrop of recent history." Julie Foster
Washington Post
"But just in case you’re curious, just in case you’re wondering whether in yours truly’s judgment it’s as good as The Kite Runner, here’s the answer: No. It’s better. This is said in full knowledge of Hosseini’s literary shortcomings." Jonathan Yardley
Christian Science Monitor
"The fact that Hosseini began by thinking of his main characters as ‘other’—to the extent of wondering ‘about their inner lives, whether they had ever had girlish dreams’—is a huge hurdle. … If A Thousand Splendid Suns is a little shaky as a work of literature, at least a reader feels that Hosseini has more at stake than where the book ends up on the bestseller list." Yvonne Zipp
Denver Post
"The somewhat overly ambitious plot extends from the relatively peaceful 1960s to the fall of the monarchy in 1973, to the Soviet war, to the Taliban years, to the U.S. invasion, and to the UN and NATO reconstruction efforts. … One senses Hosseini’s reluctance to get close to his female characters, making them seem flat as opposed to the fully realized males in the first novel." Diane Scharper
Critical Summary
A Thousand Splendid Suns raises inevitable comparisons to The Kite Runner, which sat on The New York Times best seller list for 103 weeks. Most critics agreed that Khaled Hosseini’s second novel is as devastating, if not even more powerful, than his first. A natural, if not always the most eloquent or subtle, storyteller, Hosseini gives voice to two women trying to survive in a despotic household while caught up in the throes of war. Most critics thought that Hosseini successfully evokes his female characters’ inner lives—not an easy feat for a male author—while a few observed that Mariam and Laila fail to resonate emotionally. Others noted some melodrama and predictability. Despite these quibbles, the novel offers a chilling, all-too-real portrait Afghan life. "It is, for all its shortcomings, a brave, honorable, big-hearted book" (Washington Post).
