A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini is a remarkable storyteller. For someone with so much skill, it's astonishing that, at age 42, he has only two novels under his belt.

Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, is a riveting story, this time focused on two Afghan women, Mariam and Laila. The novel is again set against the turbulent backdrop of Afghanistan, but this time Hosseini focuses on mother-daughter relationships and the bond between close women friends. It's a fascinating subject, especially considering the appalling history of oppression of women in Afghanistan.

Mariam, the elder of the two main characters, is born a harami, or illegitimate child, in 1959 in the town of Herat. To avoid public disgrace, her father dispatches Mariam and her mother to a small shack on a hillside outside of town. Mariam lives there until she turns 15, at which time she is married off to a man from Kabul.

Though Mariam's husband, Rasheed, is not liberal, many men in Kabul are. During the reign of the monarchy, women are allowed to go to school and to work. In Kabul, Mariam sees women dressed in high heels, their heads uncovered. Rasheed, though, demands that Mariam wear a burqa. "The padded headpiece felt tight and heavy on her skull," Hosseini writes, "and it was strange seeing the world through a mesh screen. She practiced walking around her room in it and kept stepping on the hem and stumbling. The loss of peripheral vision was unnerving, and she did not like the suffocating way the pleated cloth kept pressing against her mouth."

Hosseini writes from Mariam's perspective perfectly, unaffected by the gender barrier. Her character is believable and empathetic, revealing the devastating realities of life for women in Afghanistan. And Mariam's situation is particularly dire; she is twice an outsider - first as a harami and second as a woman in a Muslim country. She lives with a terrifying lack of safety.
In Part Two of the novel, Hosseini writes from Laila's perspective. Laila is born in Kabul in 1978, the night of the coup, a year before the Soviets invade the country. She is born into a liberal family; her father is a teacher and fosters her education. He tells her that women have always had it hard in Afghanistan, "but they're probably more free now, under the communists, and have more rights than they've ever had before."

Laila is only 10 years old when the jihadists defeat the communist regime. In 1992, she watches the last Soviet convoy leave the city and the country fall into civil war. She is 14 years old when her childhood love, Tariq, flees to Pakistan with his family. Soon after, a rocket slams Laila's house, killing both of her parents. Laila regains consciousness in the home of her neighbor, Rasheed. Mariam is fixing her wounds.

The two characters, Mariam and Laila, thus come together in Part Three. The tension rises quickly as Mariam realizes that Rasheed intends to marry Laila. She is furious and helpless. Rasheed, 60 years old, white-haired and sagging, rests his ashtray on his belly. He says, contentedly, that there aren't many options for the 14-year-old girl. "She can leave. I won't stand in her way. But I suspect she won't get far. No food, no water, not a rupia in her pockets, bullets and rockets flying everywhere. How many days do you think she'll last before she's abducted, raped, or tossed into some roadside ditch with her throat slit? Or all three?"

Rasheed is a contemptible character, embodying much of the corruption rampant in Afghanistan. In 1996, he welcomes the Taliban to Kabul, bringing both his wives, Mariam and Laila, and Laila's daughter, Aziza, to Pashtunistan Square to see the celebration. "When Aziza saw, she let out a shriek and buried her face in Mariam's burqa." A bearded young man stood on a platform with a rocket launcher. Beside him, Hosseini writes, "two bloodied men hung from ropes tied to traffic light posts... Their bloated faces had turned purple-blue."

As in The Kite Runner, Hosseini's second novel contains tense, violent scenes. Hosseini's writing, however, has become more sophisticated. While The Kite Runner was only slightly better, Hosseini's latest feels more crafted, more steeped in context and character rather than events. The tension of the novel arises naturally from the desperation of the situation of women in Afghanistan. And the twists and turns of the plot are not sugar coated in any way. In fact, the book is difficult to ge through, in that some of the situations these women are put it are so horrible to read.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is an important, provocative work. The rich and violent history of Afghanistan provides a haunting backdrop that informs and adds to the story. Hosseini's characters, Mariam and Laila, are unforgettable; their compassion for each other and love for their children is devastating. Hosseini has succeeded in writing another epic tale.

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