A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It is his second, following his bestselling 2003 debut, The Kite Runner. Mariam is an illegitimate child, and suffers from both the stigma surrounding her birth along with the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila, born a generation later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until their lives intersect and she is also forced to accept a marriage proposal from Rasheed, Mariam's husband.

A Thousand Splendid Suns
First edition cover
AuthorKhaled Hosseini
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
PublisherRiverhead Books (and Simon & Schuster audio CD)
Publication date
May 22, 2007
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback) and audio CD
Pages384 pp (first edition, hardcover)
ISBN978-1-59448-950-1 (first edition, hardcover)
OCLC85783363
813/.6 22
LC ClassPS3608.O832 T56 2007

Hosseini has remarked that he regards the novel as a "mother-daughter story" in contrast to The Kite Runner, which he considers a "father-son story".[1] It continues some of the themes used in his previous work, such as the familial aspects, but focuses primarily on female characters and their roles in Afghan society.

Earning widespread critical acclaim upon publication, A Thousand Splendid Suns was released on May 22, 2007,[2] and received favorable prepublication reviews from Kirkus Reviews,[3] Publishers Weekly,[4] Library Journal,[5] and Booklist,[6] becoming a number one New York Times bestseller for fifteen weeks following its release.[7] During its first week on the market, it sold over one million copies.[8] Columbia Pictures purchased film rights in 2007 and confirmed intentions to create a movie adaption of the book. The first theatrical adaptation of the book premiered on February 1, 2017, at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California.[9]

Creation

Title

The title of the book comes from a line in the Josephine Davis translation of the poem "Kabul",[10] by the 17th-century Iranian poet Saib Tabrizi:

"Every street of Kabul is enthralling to the eye
Through the bazaars, caravans of Egypt pass
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls"

In an interview, Khaled Hosseini explains, "I was searching for English translations of poems about Kabul, for use in a scene where a character bemoans leaving his beloved city, when I found this particular verse. I realized that I had found not only the right line for the scene, but also an evocative title in the phrase 'a thousand splendid suns,' which appears in the next-to-last stanza."[1]

Inspiration

When asked what led him to write a novel centered on two Afghan women, Hosseini responded:

"I had been entertaining the idea of writing a story of Afghan women for some time after I'd finished writing The Kite Runner. That first novel was a male-dominated story. All the major characters, except perhaps for Amir's wife Soraya, were men. There was a whole facet of Afghan society which I hadn't touched on in The Kite Runner, an entire landscape that I felt was fertile with story ideas...In the spring of 2003, I went to Kabul, and I recall seeing these burqa-clad women sitting at street corners, with four, five, six children, begging for change. I remember watching them walking in pairs up the street, trailed by their children in ragged clothes, and wondering how life had brought them to that point...I spoke to many of those women in Kabul. Their life stories were truly heartbreaking...When I began writing A Thousand Splendid Suns, I found myself thinking about those resilient women over and over. Though no one woman that I met in Kabul inspired either Laila or Mariam, their voices, faces, and their incredible stories of survival were always with me, and a good part of my inspiration for this novel came from their collective spirit."[1]

Writing
"I hope the book offers emotional subtext to the image of the burqa-clad woman walking down a dusty street in Kabul."

—Khaled Hosseini in a 2007 interview.[11]

Hosseini disclosed that in some ways, A Thousand Splendid Suns was more difficult to write than his first novel, The Kite Runner.[1] This is partly because when he penned The Kite Runner, "no one was waiting for it."[1] He also found his second novel to be more "ambitious" than the first due to its larger number of characters, its dual focus on Mariam and Laila, and its covering of a multi-generational-period of nearly forty-five-years.[1] However, he stated, "As I began to write, as the story picked up the pace and I found myself immersed in the world of Mariam and Laila, these apprehensions vanished on their own. The developing story captured me and enabled me to tune out the background noise and get on with the business of inhabiting the world I was creating."[1] The characters "took on a life of their own" at this point and "became very real for [him]".[12]

Similar to The Kite Runner, the manuscript had to be extensively revised; Hosseini divulged that he ultimately wrote the book five times before it was complete.[13] The novel's anticipated release was first announced in October 2006, when it was described as a story about "family, friendship, faith and the salvation to be found in love".[14]

Plot

On the outskirts of Herat, a girl named Mariam lives with her embittered and estranged mother, Nana. Mariam's father, Jalil, is a businessman who owns a cinema and lives in Herat with his three wives and nine children, but his affair with Mariam's mother led to him sweeping her under the rug by building her a small hut outside of the city, relegating her to it. Nana resents Jalil for his mistreatment of her and deceptive attitude towards Mariam. Jalil travels to visit Mariam, his illegitimate daughter, every Thursday. On her fifteenth birthday, Mariam wants her father to take her to see Pinocchio at his movie theater, against the pleas of her mother. Jalil promises to do so. When he does not come, she travels to his house in Herat and sleeps on the street outside after Jalil's doorman refuses to let her in, claiming that Jalil is busy. Later, she storms into the house and sees her father, but Jalil's chauffeur drives her back home. Upon returning home, Mariam finds that her mother has committed suicide out of fear that her daughter had deserted her. She is taken to live in Jalil's house, but his wives push him to quickly arrange for Mariam to be married to Rasheed, a shoemaker from Kabul who is thirty years her senior. Mariam resists, but is soon pressured into the marriage, moving away with Rasheed. In Kabul, Rasheed is initially kind and waits for her to adjust. However, as Mariam becomes pregnant and miscarries multiple times, their relationship sours, and he becomes increasingly moody and abusive over her inability to bear him a son.

Meanwhile, a younger girl named Laila grows up in a neighboring house in Kabul. She is close to her father, a kind-hearted teacher, but worries over her mother, who is depressed and unresponsive following her two sons' death in the army. Laila is also close friends with Tariq, a neighbor boy, but their friendship is increasingly frowned upon by others as they grow older; in spite of this, they develop a secret romance. When Afghanistan enters the war and Kabul is bombarded by rocket attacks, Tariq's family decides to leave the city, and the emotional farewell between him and Laila culminates in them making love. Laila's family eventually also decides to leave the city, but a rocket destroys their house as they are preparing to leave, killing her parents and severely injuring Laila. She is subsequently taken in by Rasheed and Mariam.

As Laila recovers from her injuries, Rasheed expresses interest in her, to Mariam's dismay. Laila is also informed that Tariq and his family have died on their way out of the city. Upon discovering that she is pregnant with Tariq's child, Laila agrees to marry Rasheed to protect herself and the baby, giving birth to a daughter, Aziza, whom Rasheed rejects and neglects for being a girl. Jealous of Laila and Rasheed's interest in her, Mariam initially is very cold, but gradually warms Laila as she attempts to cope with both Rasheed's abuse and the baby. The two become close friends and confidants, formulating a plan to run away from Rasheed and leave Kabul, but they are soon caught. Rasheed beats them both, locking them up separately and depriving them of water, almost killing Aziza.

A few years later, the Taliban rises to power and imposes harsh rules on the Afghan population, severely curtailing women's rights. In a women's hospital that has been stripped of all supplies, Laila is forced to undergo a C-section without anesthesia to give birth to Rasheed's son, Zalmai. Laila and Mariam struggle with raising Zalmai, who Rasheed dotes on and favors greatly over Aziza. There is a drought, and living conditions in Kabul become poor. Rasheed's workshop burns down, and he is forced to take other jobs. He sends Aziza to an orphanage, and Laila endures a number of beatings from the Taliban when caught alone in attempts to visit her daughter.

One day, Tariq appears at the house and is reunited with Laila, who realizes that Rasheed had hired the man to falsely inform her of Tariq's death so that she would agree to marry him. When Rasheed returns home from work, Zalmai tells him about the visitor. Suspicious of Laila and Tariq's relationship, Rasheed savagely beats Laila. He attempts to strangle her, but Mariam intervenes and kills him with a shovel, telling Laila and Tariq to run. Afterward, she confesses to killing Rasheed in order to draw attention away from them and is publicly executed. Laila and Tariq leave for Pakistan with Aziza and Zalmai, and spend their days working at a guest house in Murree, a summer retreat.

After the fall of the Taliban, Laila and Tariq return to Afghanistan. They stop in the village where Mariam was raised and discover a package that Mariam's father left behind for her: a videotape of Pinocchio, a small sack of money, and a letter. Laila reads the letter and discovers that Jalil had regretted sending Mariam away, wishing that he had fought for her. Laila and Tariq return to Kabul and use the money to repair the orphanage Aziza had stayed in, where Laila starts working as a teacher. She becomes pregnant with her third child, and if it is a girl, vows to name her Mariam.

Characters
  • Mariam is an ethnic Tajik born in Herat, 1959. She is the child of Jalil and Nana born out of wedlock. She suffers shame throughout her childhood because of the circumstances of her birth.[15] Khaled Hosseini described her portrayal: "The keyword with Mariam is that she is isolated in every sense of the word. She is a woman who is detached from the day-to-day norms of human existence. Really, she just wants a connection with another human being."[15] Despite initially resenting Laila, she becomes a "friend and a doting alternative mother" to her through the "common hardship" of being married to the "abusive, psychologically imposing" Rasheed.[15]
  • Laila is an ethnic Tajik. Born in 1978, to Hakim and Fariba, she is a beautiful and intelligent girl coming from a family in which the father is a university-educated and a teacher. Hosseini states that compared to Mariam, Laila "had a much more fulfilling relationship with her father, her boyfriends and her childhood friend, Tariq. She expected to finish school and is looking for personal fulfillment. These are two very different representations of women."[15] Her life becomes tied to Mariam's when she becomes the second wife of Rasheed, Mariam's husband. This originally draws resentment from Mariam, who "[feels] her territory infringed upon".[15] Despite this, "Laila becomes her daughter for all practical purposes" due to Mariam's childlessness, struggles, and abuse they both face during the marriage.[15] Towards the end of the novel she becomes a schoolteacher at the orphanage where Aziza had stayed.[16]
  • Rasheed is an ethnic Pashtun, a shoemaker, and the antagonist of the novel. He marries Mariam through an arrangement with Jalil and later marries Laila as well. After suffering years of domestic abuse at his hands, Mariam bludgeons Rasheed to death with a shovel during a violent struggle. Hosseini stated that he hoped to create a multi-layered character in Rasheed, saying, "Rasheed's the embodiment of the patriarchal, tribal character. In writing him, I didn't want to write him as an irredeemable villain. He is a reprehensible person, but there are moments of humanity, such as his love for his son."[15] He identified an encounter with an Afghan man four years earlier as the foundation for this character; the man "had a very sweet, subservient wife" and had not yet informed her that he was planning to marry again.[15]
  • Tariq, an ethnic Pashtun born in 1976, is a boy who grew up in Kabul with Laila. He lost a leg to a land mine at the age of five.[16] They eventually evolve from best friends to lovers; after a decade of separation they are married and expecting a child by the end of the novel.[16]
  • Nana is Mariam's mother and a former servant of Jalil. Mariam's birth is the result of an affair between Nana and Jalil. Jalil's favoritism towards his wives and legitimate children leaves Nana bitter towards Jalil. She hangs herself when Mariam is fifteen after Mariam journeys to Jalil's house on her birthday. Nana perceives this to be betrayal and regards as an act of desertion.
  • Mullah Faizullah, a Sufi, is Mariam's elderly Koran teacher and friend. He dies of natural causes in 1989.
  • Jalil is Mariam's father, a wealthy man who had three wives before he fathered Mariam. He marries Mariam to Rasheed after Nana's death,[17] but later regrets sending her away. He dies in 1987.
  • Hakim is Laila's father. He is a well-educated and a progressive schoolteacher.[17] He is killed in a rocket explosion along with Fariba.[16]
  • Fariba is Laila's mother. In Part One, during her brief meeting with Mariam, she is depicted as cheerful, but her happy nature is disrupted when her two sons, Ahmad and Noor, leave home to go to war and are later killed. She spends nearly all of her time in bed mourning her sons until the Mujahideen are victorious, and is later killed in a rocket explosion along with Hakim.[16]
  • Aziza, born in the spring of 1993, is the daughter of Laila and Tariq, conceived when Laila was fourteen. When the news of Tariq's alleged death arrives, in order to hide the child's illegitimacy and provide for herself, Laila decides to marry Rasheed. Aziza's birth marks the beginning of Laila's fall from favor with Rasheed[17] and the friendship between Mariam and Laila.[16][18]
  • Zalmai, born in September 1997, to Laila and Rasheed. He serves as a redeeming facet of Rasheed,[15] idolizing him despite the abuse to his mother and Mariam. Zalmai remains unaware of the fact that Mariam killed Rasheed and continuously asks Laila about him, who lies by saying that he simply left for some time. After initially blaming Tariq for his father's mysterious disappearance, he comes to accept Tariq as a father-figure.

Analysis

Family

When asked about common themes in The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini replied:

"Both novels are multigenerational, and so the relationship between parent and child, with all of its manifest complexities and contradictions, is a prominent theme. I did not intend this, but I am keenly interested, it appears, in the way parents and children love, disappoint, and in the end honor each other. In one way, the two novels are corollaries: The Kite Runner was a father-son story, and A Thousand Splendid Suns can be seen as a mother-daughter story."[1]

He ultimately considers both novels to be "love stories" in that it is love that "draws characters out of their isolation, that gives them the strength to transcend their own limitations, to expose their vulnerabilities, and to perform devastating acts of self-sacrifice".[1]

Women in Afghanistan

Hosseini visited Afghanistan in 2003, and "heard so many stories about what happened to women, the tragedies that they had endured, the difficulties, the gender-based violence that they had suffered, the discrimination, the being barred from active life during the Taliban, having their movement restricted, being banned essentially from practicing their legal, social rights, political rights".[12] This motivated him to write a novel centered on two Afghan women.[12]

Washington Post writer Jonathan Yardley suggests that "the central theme of A Thousand Splendid Suns is the place of women in Afghan society", pointing to a passage in which Mariam's mother states, "Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam."[18]

In the book, both Mariam and Laila are forced into accepting marriage to Rasheed, who requires them to wear a burqa before it is implemented by law under the Taliban. He later becomes increasingly abusive.[17] A Riverhead Trades Weekly review states that the novel consistently shows the "patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status."[19]

Reception

In the first week following its release, A Thousand Splendid Suns sold over one million copies,[8] becoming a number-one New York Times bestseller for fifteen weeks.[7] Time magazine's Lev Grossman placed it at number three in the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007, and praised it as a "dense, rich, pressure-packed guide to enduring the unendurable."[20][21] Jonathan Yardley said in the Washington Post "Book World", "Just in case you're wondering whether Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns is as good as The Kite Runner, here's the answer: No. It's better."[18]

A Thousand Splendid Suns received significant praise from reviewers, with Publishers Weekly calling it "a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan"[4] and USA Today describing the prose as "achingly beautiful".[22] Lisa See of The New York Times attributed the book's success to Hosseini "[understanding] the power of emotion as few other popular writers do".[23] Natasha Walter from The Guardian wrote, "Hosseini is skilled at telling a certain kind of story, in which events that may seem unbearable - violence, misery and abuse - are made readable. He doesn't gloss over the horrors his characters live through, but something about his direct, explanatory style and the sense that you are moving towards a redemptive ending makes the whole narrative, for all its tragedies, slip down rather easily."[24]

Cathleen Medwick gave the novel a highly positive review in O, the Oprah Magazine:

"Love may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you consider the war-ravaged landscape of Afghanistan. But that is the emotion—subterranean, powerful, beautiful, illicit, and infinitely patient—that suffuses the pages of Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. As in his best-selling first novel, The Kite Runner, Hosseini movingly examines the connections between unlikely friends, the fissures that open up between parents and children, the intransigence of quiet hearts."[25]

The New York Times writer Michiko Kakutani wrote a more critical review, describing the opening as "heavy-handed" and early events in the novel as "soap-opera-ish".[26] Despite these objections, she concluded, "Gradually, however, Mr. Hosseini's instinctive storytelling skills take over, mowing down the reader's objections through sheer momentum and will. He succeeds in making the emotional reality of Mariam and Laila's lives tangible to us, and by conjuring their day-to-day routines, he is able to give us a sense of what daily life was like in Kabul — both before and during the harsh reign of the Taliban."[26] Similarly, Yvonne Zipp of The Christian Science Monitor concluded that A Thousand Splendid Suns was ultimately "a little shaky as a work of literature".[27]

The depictions of the lead female characters, Mariam and Laila, were praised by several commentators. John Freeman from The Houston Chronicle found them "enormously winning"[28] while Carol Memmott from USA Today further described them as "stunningly heroic characters whose spirits somehow grasp the dimmest rays of hope".[22] Medwick summed up the portrayals: "Mariam, branded as a harami, or bastard, and forced into an abusive marriage at the age of fifteen, and Laila, a beauty groomed for success but shrouded almost beyond recognition by repressive sharia law and the husband she and Mariam share. The story, epic in scope and spanning three decades, follows these two indomitable women whose fortunes mirror those of their beloved and battered country—'nothing pretty to look at, but still standing'—and who find in each other the strength they need to survive."[25]

Jennifer Reese from Entertainment Weekly dubbed Rasheed "one of the most repulsive males in recent literature".[29] Lisa See wrote that, with the exception of Tariq, "the male characters seem either unrelentingly evil or pathetically weak" and opined, "If a woman wrote these things about her male characters, she would probably be labeled a man-hater."[23]

On November 5, 2019, the BBC News listed A Thousand Splendid Suns on its list of the 100 most inspiring novels.[30]

Adaptations

Columbia Pictures owns the movie rights to the novel. Steven Zaillian finished writing the first draft of the screenplay in 2009[31] and is also slated to direct; Scott Rudin has signed on as a producer.[32] In May 2013, studios confirmed a tentative release date of 2015.[33]

The first theatrical adaptation of the novel premiered in San Francisco, California, on February 1, 2017. It is co-produced by the American Conservatory Theater and Theatre Calgary.[9]

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References
  1. "An interview with Khaled Hosseini". Book Browse. 2007. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
  2. "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Penguin.com (USA). Penguin Group USA. c. 2008. Archived from the original on 21 May 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
  3. "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Kirkus Reviews. March 1, 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-10-17. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
  4. "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Publishers Weekly. May 2007. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  5. "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Library Journal (review archived at MARINet). January 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
  6. Huntley, Kristine (March 2007). "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Booklist. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  7. Emrich, Stephanie (June 12, 2013). "'The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns' author Khaled Hosseini flies into Fairhope". Gulf Coast News Today. Archived from the original on July 4, 2013. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  8. Jurgensen, Paige (September 24, 2012). "Hosseini's novel tears the heart". The Linfield Review. Archived from the original on November 29, 2013. Retrieved July 4, 2013.
  9. Milvy, Erika (January 19, 2017). "For 'A Thousand Splendid Suns,' a well-timed journey from the page to the stage". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  10. "Kabul", oldpoetry.com
  11. Memmott, Carol (May 3, 2007). "5 questions for Khaled Hosseini". USA Today. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
  12. "'Kite Runner' Author On His Childhood, His Writing, And The Plight Of Afghan Refugees". Radio Free Europe. June 21, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
  13. Young, Lucie (May 19, 2007). "Despair in Kabul". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved July 31, 2013.
  14. Bosman, Julie (October 20, 2006). "Arts, Briefly; 'Kite Runner' Author To Release a New Novel". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
  15. Foley, Dylan (July 15, 2007). "Interview Khaled Hosseini". The Denver Post. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  16. Baron, Scarlette (June 15, 2007). "The War-Wearied Women of Kabul". Oxonian Review. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  17. Thompson, Harvey (August 8, 2009). "A Thousand Splendid Suns: The plight of Afghan women only partially depicted". WSWS. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  18. Yardley, Jonathan (May 20, 2007). "Jonathan Yardley: A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  19. "Critical Praise". Book Reporter. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  20. Grossman, Lev; "The 10 Best Fiction Books"; Time magazine; December 24, 2007; Pages 44 - 45.
  21. Grossman, Lev; Top 10 Fiction Books; time.com
  22. Memmott, Carol (May 21, 2007). "'Splendid Suns' burns brightly amid suffering". USA Today. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  23. See, Lisa (June 3, 2007). "Mariam and Laila". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
  24. Walter, Natasha (May 18, 2007). "Behind the veil". The Guardian. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  25. Medwick, Cathleen (June 2007). "Emotional Rescue". O, the Oprah Magazine. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
  26. Kakutani, Michiko (May 29, 2007). "A Woman's Lot in Kabul, Lower Than a House Cat's". The New York Times. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  27. Zipp, Yvonne (May 22, 2007). "In Kabul, a tale of two women". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  28. Freeman, John (May 27, 2007). "A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini". The Houston Chronicle. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  29. Reese, Jennifer (May 18, 2007). "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  30. "100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News. 2019-11-05. Retrieved 2019-11-10. The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
  31. Mechanic, Michael (May–June 2009). "Khaled Hosseini, Kabul's Splendid Son (Extended Interview)". Mother Jones. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
  32. Siegel, Tatiana (September 16, 2007). Zaillian takes shine to 'Suns'. Variety.
  33. Hoby, Hermione (May 31, 2013). "Khaled Hosseini: 'If I could go back now, I'd take The Kite Runner apart'". The Guardian. Retrieved July 4, 2013.

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