The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.

Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.

The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park. --Lisa Alward, Amazon.ca

View other editions of The Kite Runner.
View books by Khaled Hosseini.

Wow - Rated
I picked this book up, read a couple of pages and couldnt put it down. A truly moving story of the different lives of two boys. What a fantastic author Khaled Hosseini is, he brings the story alive. I didnt want the book to end.The 2nd best book I have ever read. Caz

excellent - Rated
Knowing almost nothing about Afghanistan, I wasn't sure i would be able to identify with this book. But it really surprised me - I loved it. it is tragic, harrowing and hopeful all at the same time. A story of friendship, love, hurt, betrayal and redemption. The prose is highly evocative, and you can almost taste the streets of Kabul as you read. Definitely highly recommended - I almost didn't want to finish it, because then there would be no more of it to read.

Don't read the reviews on the jacket and inside covers - they give too much away - Rated
The reviews were so glowing I was ready to be disappointed but wasn't. The only problem was that the reviews all give a little of the plot away so, if you read them all, you have a sense of what's going to happen. Just don't read the reviews, trust me, read the first chapter without preconception and then go from there.
This book flows and is composed like a well constructed symphony or painting - all the componets carefully placed in their optimum place for best effect. It is a story that tears at the emotions and lets the pressure build but each time you think events are about to release the build up, they do not. The tale twists and pirouettes beautifully against expectations. Read it and weep!

What a disappointment ! - Rated
I bought this book because of the wonderful review by so many people, but what a great disappointment it turned out! The characters are so flat like cut-out paper, the story is predictable, the plot is dull, the language is so poor, it must be some kind of brain-wash side-benefit this brings to the readers, or they would not say things that totally out of place. I tried so hard in three weeks to finish it, on and off, but never passed page 65. And even that was so miserable. You people should go see doctor. And while I am at it, you should read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, or The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. So you will open your eyes, and get an idea of great work of literature! But this is simply a put-down.

The Kite Runner - Rated
An absolutely first class read, wanted to know the outcome but didn't want it to end. Bought 1,000 Splendid Suns by the same author at the same time and can't wait start reading.