Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner (Bloom's Guides)

In "The Kite Runner", history and personal responsibility come together in the story of Amir, an Afghan boy who is haunted by the guilt of betraying his childhood friend Hassan, the son of his father's servant. In the background loom the many tumultuous changes that have gripped Afghanistan in the years since Amir's carefree kite-flying childhood. From the fall of the monarchy through the Soviet invasion to the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States to the rise of the Taliban regime, the story of Amir and Hassan emerges as the story of Afghanistan itself.

Reading Khaled Hosseini

One of the most important emerging novelists today, Khaled Hosseini has enjoyed critical success and popular accolades. His first book, The Kite Runner, was voted Reading Group Book of the Year in 2006 and 2007 and was made into a major motion picture. His second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, seems destined to follow the same path.