Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62 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

what an amazing tale...
I instantly fell in love with the characters and was deeply moved by the story. I usually read on the train and did not expect to cry my eyes out with this one; but I did.

A tear jerker
A very emotionally charged book. Enjoyed and hated at the same time. Well worth a read

Run and get the Kite!
Here's a book everyone should read. No exception. Please do so.

I was totally taken by this book, cried a couple of times whilst reading it and even sometime after i had finished it i still remembered the characters so well. Haunting but oh so worth it!

A must have in you own private collection of books, even if its a small one.

I have also read 1000 splendid suns. top book too! waiting for Khaled's next book... please hurry!!!