About:
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is the author’s second novel following the wildly successful and acclaimed The Kite Runner. Mr. Hosseini is an Afghan-American author, this book was published in 2007.
My rating for A Thousand Splendid –4
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Thoughts:
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is another impressive book about life in Afghanistan but this time about the plight of women under the rule of the Taliban. The two main characters are Marian (an illegitimate girl) who is forced to marry a brutal shoemaker; and Laila who is raised by a modern family yet still ends up as the second wife of the vicious shoemaker. The shoemaker, by the way, is a Taliban follower.
There are many well described aspects which surround the story: familial roles, household chores division, raising children, religion and more. The author tries to accentuate the harshness that some women have in their life and that no matter what they’ll do, they’ll never get ahead because of how they grew up and /or who they were born to.
I also found it interesting that Mr. Hosseini wrote how the Taliban followers justify their oppression of women, which is a perspective which helps the men explain to themselves why they are allowed to treat women like dirt – and hence be able to look in the mirror.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is not as good or disturbing as The Kite Runner but still well worth reading, however these are two different books and the comparison is unwarranted.
Synopsis:
Mariam and Laila find a common ground by their fate, their loss and their experiences, even though they were born a generation apart. The novel is divided into four parts, the first focusing on Mariam, second on Laila, and the third part focuses on the relationship between the two women. The fourth part, the only one taking place in the present, focuses on Laila’s life with her husband Tariq.
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I bought this book.
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Hosseini has yet again pulled off another masterpiece since his debut bestseller 'The Kite Runner'. A heartbreaking story of a girl living in the never ending troubled times of Afganistan. Hosseini really has got that special talent to go very minute detail of the characters and the setup where the characters have been portrayed. But you got to have a lot of patience to get to the last page of the book.