Product Description

Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
'In case you're wondering whether A Thousand Splendid Suns is as good as The Kite Runner, here's the answer: No. It's better' Washington Post 'Only the hardest of hearts could fail to be as moved' Glamour 'A masterful narrative He is a storyteller of dizzying power' Evening Standard 'Hosseini has that rare thing, a Dickensian knack for storytelling' Daily Telegraph

About the Author
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and moved to the United States in 1980. His first novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, published in thirty-four countries. In 2006 he was named a US goodwill envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency. He lives in northern California.

Customer Reviews

Beautifully descriptive and poignant
I didn't think that I could enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed the Kite Runner which is the main reason why I have put off reading this book for a while.
I absolutely loved it. It is full of more of the wonderful evocative description at which this author excels. He seems to be able to create the atmosphere of the moment by describing the surroundings in detail - emphasising the destruction when times are bad and concentrating on the beauty of nature in the more positive areas of the book.
There are many male authors who write from a woman's point of view (some more successfully than others) and this book seems to get the feelings and emotions just right.
Another great part of the book is the education process, learning more about Afghanistan history and some of the reasons why the UK have troops there at the moment.

Excellent read!
Had this book bought for me as a birthday present, and to be honest I wasn't looking forward to reading it, I was put off by the thought of reading about wars..
However I've just finished the book. I read it in one day as I was completely unable to put it down. Totally gripping and moving. A real insight to a place which we only hear about on the news.
I'm now going to buy the kite runner.

one of the best books
i am not usually a fiction reader but this book grape my attention from the first page, i could not simply put it down, the story is very interesting and the author is very good at describing the characters they almost come to life. The story is about women in Afghanistan and how every one suffered under the non stop war. Starting with maryam the illegitimate girl who gets let down by men, starting by the man she loved most, her father. He author then introduces layla, the young and ambitions m she had a better childhood but then ends up a second wife to the man who married Maryam . a strange relationship then develops between the two women. The happy ending comes as a relief after the pain and turmoil experienced by almost every character in the book.
My next read will by the kit runner!