A Thousand Splendid Suns - By Khalid Hosseni

A Thousand Splendid Suns - By Khalid Hosseini

Genre - Fictional, Historical, Classic

Rating - 5/5

Pages - 372

A book that ripped the hearts of almost many readers including me. This book gives us the feeling of gratitude, family, love, affection, feminism, and a lot more. It is beautifully written by the author Khaled Hosseini. He is indeed a storyteller. Khaled Hosseini born March 4, 1965, is an Afghan-American novelist, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, and former physician. His debut novel The Kite Runner (2003) was a critical and commercial success; the book and his subsequent novels have all been at least partially set in Afghanistan and have featured an Afghan as the protagonist.

He unfolds the story very well. Here is a glimpse of the book as a summary.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan from the early 1960s to the early 2000s. Mariam, a young girl in the 1960s, grows up outside Herat, a small city in Afghanistan. Mariam has complicated feelings about her parents: She lives with her spiteful and stubborn mother, Nana; while her father Jalil, a successful businessman, visits Mariam — his only illegitimate child — once a week. Mariam resents her limited place in Jalil's life; she wants to live with him, his three wives, and her half-siblings in Herat. She makes her wishes known by asking Jalil to take her to see Pinocchio for her fifteenth birthday. Jalil reluctantly agrees, but then never shows up to take her to the film. Mariam walks to Heart and finds Jalil's house, but he doesn't let her in, so she sleeps on the street. The next morning, Jalil's chauffeur drives Mariam home where she finds that her mother has committed suicide.
Mariam is taken to Jalil's home after her mother's funeral. Jalil's wives want nothing to do with Mariam, so they force him to let her marry Rasheed, a widowed shoemaker in Kabul. At first, Rasheed treats Mariam decently, but after she suffers miscarriage after miscarriage, he abuses her both physically and verbally. It becomes clear that Rasheed's only use for Mariam is in her ability to replace the son he lost years ago.

And there are a lot of hurdles in the life of not only Mariam but also a new character in the novel. For me personally, it is a very heartwrenching, emotional, and a beginners friendly book. To start reading a novel or to invest your money, this book is a great start. I remember it was also my first ever novel when I started reading novels.

Thank You for Staying up till the end. Hope the world indulges in reading more than scrolling.

Bye and Take Care.