A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, reviewed by Shreya Barua

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Reviewed by
Name: Shreya Barua (13 years)
School: Carmel Convent School, New Delhi

“A Thousand Splendid Suns” is a fiction written by Khaled Hosseini, an Afghani writer. The author; in this book tries to inform the audience about the situations faced by particularly woman in Afghanistan. The protagonists of this book are two women: Miriam and Laila.

Miriam is an illegitimate child of a well known businessman of Herat (Afghanistan). When her mother commits suicide, the wives of her father marry her off to an elderly widower named Rasheed. It is a marriage that soon declines into misery and brutality made worse by Rasheed’s decision to marry the orphaned Laila. When Laila disappoints Rasheed By bearing him a daughter, she too finds him the target of his cruelty. But out of this unhappy household grows a very strong friendship.

Both of them decide to escape from the hideous Rasheed; when the Taliban take over. But will they be successful in escaping from a land; where women were no longer allowed to move out of their house without a male relative with them.....................

The author has portrayed a very painful picture of the situations in Afghanistan; both for men and women. The information in this book about the Taliban is objectively presented and is based completely on what really happens with the people in Afghanistan. The language used in the book is simple English with a tinge of ‘easy to understand’ Afghani in it which takes us to the author’s world!

Written often in a lyrical prose, Khaled Hosseini’s second novel intertwines thirty years of turbulent Afghan history through an extremely powerful story of family, friendship and eventually hopes…

I would really like to recommend this book to all readers as this book deeply touches your heart and compels you after reading the book; to sit for one minute and think about the people in Afghanistan and other places ruled over by the Taliban. The story will not leave you even after you turn the last page…