Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Review
'Hosseini's ability to reach the core ofexperiences of love and loss places him in the company of such fine chroniclers of the new America as Chang-rae Lee. The Kite Runner is a first novel of unusual generosity, honesty and compassion' Independent 'The shattering first novel by Khaled Hosseini a rich and soul-searching narrative a sharp, unforgettable taste of the trauma and tumult experienced by Afghanis as their country buckled' Observer 'A devastating, masterful and painfully honest story it is a novel of great hidden intricacy and wisdom, like a timeless Eastern tale. It speaks the most harrowing truth about the power of evil' Daily Telegraph 'Unforgettable extraordinary. It is so powerful that for a long time after everything I read seemed bland' Isabel Allende

Literary Review
'Beautifully nuanced, and the moment of Amir's ultimate betrayal is genuinely shocking. It is a passionate story'

Customer Reviews

Drop everything - read this book!
Oh my goodness, just finished The Kite Runner! The most epically tragic book I have ever read. My heart feels abit broken.....

After reading this book I just wanted to scoop all the characters up and tell them it will be ok. I had tears in my eyes throughout,this really is a very special book.

A Page Turner that's Good for the Soul
A lot of novels are "worthy" but you need to put a lot of effort into getting the most out of them; others are page-turners and pass the time easily and pleasurably, but don't do much else. The Kite Runner has that rare quality of being both worthy and a page-turner - and you learn a good slice about Afghan culture to boot. It's a very concisely written novel which tells a fascinating story and which contains sharply-observed characters that you come to really care about; the author's honesty shines through from start to finish.

Excellent
On a Winter's day in 1975 Amir witnesses an awful act involving his childhood friend Hassan that will have unimaginable bearings on the rest of his life. Amir is the privaleged son of a rich and respected merchant in Afghanistan; Hassan is the son of his father's long-time servant Ali. Although from different ends of the spectrum, the boys share a childhood until the day that changes both of their lives forever.
There are so many themes running through Hosseini's book; friendship, childhood, loyalty, trust, cruelty and redemption are just a few. The author manages to vividly evoke the daily horror of Afghanistan under Taliban rule, especially when mirrored with the security of Amir's new life in San Francisco.
I had constantly put off reading this book as I was worried that all of the hype surrounding it would be unfounded. However, I have to say that this is one of the best books that I have read in such a long time. The Kite Runner is not a nice book, it explores the decisions we make in life and what it is that leads us to make different choices. Why does one person run whilst another stays to fight, however terrified? Hosseini has you gripped from the first page and there are many twists and turns along the way but I believe that the reader keeps turning the pages due to a sense of hope that Amir will find true redemption. As the book states:

'...there are bad people in this world, and sometimes bad people stay bad.'
The reader knows what Amir did on that Winter day was horrendous and in some ways unforgiveable but the actions he takes later in life ensures that he does not remain a bad person, a fate that befalls other characters in the book.