A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]wo weekends ago I found myself in the glorious trap of Grow Well’s book sale in Rodney Bay. There, I picked up some new titles and one that I read over a year ago, since when I have recommended it to every reading woman I know.

In 2016, after Khaled Hosseini had paradoxically broken and captured my heart with ‘The Kite Runner’, I grabbed ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ with which he did it all over again. Hosseini is a prolific writer. The stories, both initially set in Afghanistan, are quite different yet equally heart-wrenching and thought-provoking, especially for a young woman.

‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ highlights the relationship between women and girls, and its importance in its setting. Young Mariam is a girl born out of wedlock to a woman suffering from periodic mental disorder. She spends the first fifteen years of her life with her mother in a small wooden house near a stream. Mariam’s father, whom she adores, visits her once a week feeding all her mind’s fantasies with his stories and descriptions. But, not once does he bring her to the places he describes: his house with many children and three wives, his cinema and the splendid city of Kabul. Eventually Mariam convinces him to take her to his cinema but, when he does not show up, she takes matters into her own hands. From that day, life as she knows it spirals its way to the depths of hell’s hottest fires. She learns what her mother rang in her head for fifteen years: the women of their servant class only know one thing, and it is how to endure.

Mariam is married off three days after her mother’s suicide under a tree outside their little house. She and her husband go to live in Kabul. Mariam’s neighbour then gives birth to a blonde-haired, green-eyed beauty named Laila, on the day before Afghanistan becomes the Islamic State of Afghanistan. Laila grows up in a country which becomes more violent by the day. Conflict is common between the nation’s people, because of religious and political beliefs. Bombs and missiles rain on the city of Kabul, and Laila and her childhood friend, Tariq, see it in the distance, hearing of the people killed. Laila’s mother unhealthily grieves while she misses her sons who are fighting the Soviet soldiers, and Laila’s father encourages her to excel in her schooling. Finally, the Soviets leave Afghanistan but the bombings increase to the point where Laila and her family feel the urge to flee the city. Mariam and Laila’s lives collide in the most unexpected turn because of the catastrophe happening in Kabul.

In ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ Hosseini makes many unnerving, stomach-churning plot twists which require full attention of the heart and soul. Reading ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’, I imagined wandering through the streets of Afghanistan as a woman, into a life I know I would never have been able to survive. The novel shows the disheartening hypocrisy against women in the laws there, and the rights they are deprived of daily. Khaled Hosseini once again evokes awareness of the difference between human worlds while keeping grace and poise in his writing.

‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ is a wonderful recommendation for a female, especially for the upcoming International Women’s Day on March 8, 2018 which is themed #PressforProgress. The campaign aims to push intentional actions in the world for gender parity following suit of movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp. Sitting in the western hemisphere it’s easy to take a stand behind the scenes of social media but the book ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ reveals the harsh realities of women in countries like Afghanistan.

The original book review was published in the November 19, 2016 edition of the STAR.