A Thousand Splendid Suns

Historical fiction · Tragedy

First published: 2007
Print length: 448 pagesRiverhead Books, 2008

Description

Mariam grows up poor and isolated near Herat before a family tragedy sends her to Kabul and an arranged marriage with a shoemaker. Years of miscarriages turn her husband’s disappointment into sustained cruelty. A generation later, Laila comes of age in the same city, sustained by her friendship with Tariq even as war fractures her family and devastates Kabul. Injured and dependent, she enters Mariam’s household as a second wife. Suspicion between the women gradually gives way to a protective, mother-daughter-like alliance as they endure domestic abuse, civil conflict, and the Taliban’s restrictions on women. Their intertwined stories form an intimate novel about survival, sacrifice, and the forms of love that can emerge inside violent constraints.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Descriptive · Direct · Lyrical

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Dark · Hopeful · Intimate · Tense

Structure

Braided · Linear

Focus

Character · Plot · Relationships

Emotional intensity

5 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

FamilyLoveOppressionRedemptionSurvivalWar

About Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan American novelist, former physician, and UNHCR goodwill ambassador whose writing is closely informed by migration and Afghan family life. Born in Kabul in 1965 to a diplomat father, he lived briefly in Iran and France before his family sought asylum in the United States when he was 15. He did not return to Afghanistan until 2003, the year his debut novel, The Kite Runner, appeared; his experience of returning resembles that of the book’s protagonist. Hosseini grew up reading Persian poetry, particularly Rumi, Omar Khayyám, Abdul-Qādir Bēdil, and Hafez, and his fiction combines direct, descriptive storytelling with lyrical passages. His novels show war, displacement, and political upheaval through their effects on relationships among parents, children, siblings, and friends. The Kite Runner centers guilt and exile in a friendship divided by class, while A Thousand Splendid Suns follows two women whose alliance develops amid domestic abuse, civil conflict, and Taliban rule. The illustrated Sea Prayer extends his attention to displacement beyond Afghanistan through a Syrian father’s address to his son.

Books by Khaled Hosseini

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Riverhead Books
Language: English
ISBN: 9781594483073

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