Khaled Hosseini

Afghan Roots, American Life

Khaled Hosseini was born on March 4, 1965, in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father was a diplomat for the Afghan foreign ministry and his mother taught Farsi and history at a high school in Kabul. The family lived in Tehran and Paris when his father was posted abroad, and in 1980 — following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — they applied for political asylum in the United States rather than return home. They settled in San Jose, California. Hosseini attended high school there, then earned a biology degree from Santa Clara University in 1988 and a medical degree from the UC San Diego School of Medicine in 1993. He practiced internal medicine in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than a decade, writing fiction quietly on the side before his first novel changed his life entirely.

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner began as a twenty-five-page short story that Hosseini wrote in 2001. He expanded it into a novel set in Afghanistan from the 1970s through the era of Taliban rule. It follows Amir, the son of a wealthy Kabul merchant, and Hassan, the son of his family's servant — and the boyhood betrayal that haunts Amir into adulthood. The novel was initially rejected by publishers before Riverhead Books agreed to publish it in 2003. Sales were slow at first, then word of mouth propelled it onto the New York Times bestseller list in 2005. It remained on the list for more than two years and has since sold more than 38 million copies worldwide. A film adaptation was released in 2007.

A Body of Work About Afghanistan

Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), centers on two Afghan women from different generations and backgrounds whose lives become intertwined against the backdrop of decades of war and Taliban rule. It debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and sold roughly ten million copies in its first year. His third novel, And the Mountains Echoed (2013), traces the separation and reconnection of an Afghan family across generations and continents. In 2006, Hosseini was appointed a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador to support Afghan refugees worldwide. He and his wife co-founded the Khaled Hosseini Foundation in 2008, which has built schools and provided humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.

Why The Kite Runner Is Challenged

The Kite Runner is among the most challenged books in American schools and libraries. Objections focus primarily on its depiction of the rape of a child, explicit language, and the brutal violence depicted under Taliban rule. Some challengers have also argued that the novel presents an unflattering picture of Islam, while others have objected to its portrayal of Afghanistan's ethnic tensions. Hosseini has spoken about the importance of confronting difficult truths in literature, and the novel remains required reading in secondary schools and universities around the world.