The Kite Runner

2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Novels

The Kite Runner
Author	Khaled Hosseini
Cover artist	Jacket design and imaging: Honi Werner
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Riverhead Books
Publication date	May 29, 2003
Media type	Print ( hardcover & paperback), audio CD, audio cassette, and audio download
Pages	324 pp (first edition, hardcover)
ISBN	ISBN 1-57322-245-3 (first edition, hardcover)

The Kite Runner is the first novel by Afghan American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003, it is the first novel published in English by an author from Afghanistan.

Introduction

The Kite Runner tells the story of Amir, a well-to-do boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who is haunted by the guilt of betraying his childhood friend Hassan, the son of his father's Hazara servant. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of the monarchy in Afghanistan through the Soviet invasion, the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the Taliban regime.

Plot

(The story of 25 chapters is narrated by Amir, directed to the reader, except that chapter 16 is narrated by Rahim Khan, directed to Amir.)

The two main characters of the story are Amir, a well-to-do Afghan boy, and Hassan, a Hazara (the son of Amir's father's servant, Ali). The boys spend their days in a peaceful Kabul, kite fighting, roaming the streets and being boys. Amir’s father, Baba, loves both the boys, but seems often to favour Hassan. He is critical of Amir. Amir’s mother died in childbirth, and Amir fears his father blames him for his mother’s death. However, he has a kind father figure in the form of Rahim Khan, Baba’s friend, who understands Amir better, and is supportive of his interest in writing stories.

A notoriously violent older boy with Nazi sympathies, Assef, blames Amir for socialising with a Hazara, according to Assef an inferior race that should only live in Hazarajat. He prepares to attack Amir with his brass knuckles, but Hassan bravely stands up to him, threatening to shoot Assef in the eye with his slingshot. Assef and his henchmen back off, but Assef says he will take revenge.

Hassan is a "kite runner" for Amir, he runs to fetch kites Amir has defeated by cutting their strings. He knows where the kite will land without even seeing it. One triumphant day, Amir wins the local tournament, and finally Baba's praise. Hassan goes to run the last cut kite, a great trophy, for Amir saying "For you, a thousand times over." Unfortunately, Hassan runs into Assef and his two henchmen. Hassan refuses to give up Amir's kite, so Assef extracts his revenge, assaulting and anally raping him. Wondering why Hassan is taking so long, Amir searches for Hassan and hides when he hears Assef's voice. He witnesses what happens to Hassan but is too scared to help him. Afterwards, for some time Hassan and Amir keep a distance from each other. When Hassan wants to pick up their friendship again Amir holds it off. When people ask what is the matter, Amir reacts indifferently. He feels ashamed, and is frustrated by Hassan's saint-like behaviour and worries that Baba loves Hassan more, and would love him even more if he knew what happened to Hassan and Amir's cowardly inaction.

To force Hassan to leave, Amir frames him as a thief, and Hassan falsely confesses. Baba forgives him, despite the fact that, as he explained earlier, he believes that "there is no act more wretched than stealing". Hassan and his father Ali, to Baba's extreme sorrow, leave anyway. Hassan's departure frees Amir of the daily reminder of his cowardice and betrayal, but he still lives in their shadow.

A short while later, the Russians invade Afghanistan; Amir and Baba escape to Peshawar, Pakistan and then to Fremont, California, where Amir and Baba, who lived in luxury in an expensive mansion in Afghanistan, settle in a humble apartment and Baba begins work at a gas station. Amir eventually takes classes at a local community college to develop his writing skills. Every Sunday, Baba and Amir make extra money selling used goods at a flea market in San Jose. There, Amir meets Soraya Taheri and her family; Soraya's father has contempt of Amir's literary aspiration. Baba has lung cancer but is still capable to do Amir a big favour: he asks Soraya's father permission for Amir to marry her. He agrees and the two marry. Shortly thereafter Baba dies. Amir and Soraya learn that they cannot have children.

Amir embarks on a successful career as a novelist. Fifteen years after they said goodbye, Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan, who is dying from an illness, who asks him to come to Pakistan. He enigmatically tells Amir "there is a way to be good again". Amir goes.

From Rahim Khan, Amir learns the fates of Ali and Hassan. Ali was killed by a land mine. Hassan had a wife and a son, named Sohrab, and had returned to Baba’s house as a caretaker at Rahim Khan’s request. One day the Taliban ordered him to give it up and leave, but he refused, and was murdered, along with his wife. And the secret truth about Hassan is that Ali was not his father. He is the son of Baba, and Amir's half-brother. Finally, Rahim Khan reveals that the true reason he has called Amir to Pakistan is to go to Kabul to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, from an orphanage.

Amir returns to Taliban-controlled Kabul with a guide, Farid, and search for Sohrab at the orphanage. However, he does not find Sohrab there. The director of the orphanage tells them that a Taliban official has recently taken him. He tells him to go to a football match and the man “preaching” will be the man who took Sohrab.

Amir goes and secures an appointment with him at his home. There he finds out that the Taliban official is actually his childhood nemesis Assef. Sohrab is made to dance dressed in women's clothes, and it seems Assef might have been sexually assaulting him (Sohrab later says: "I'm so dirty and full of sin. The bad man and the other two did things to me"). Assef agrees to relinquish him, but only if Amir can beat him in a fight to death, with Sohrab as the prize. Assef brutally beats Amir, but Amir is saved when Sohrab uses his slingshot to shoot out Assef's left eye, fulfilling the threat his father had made years before.

Amir tells Sohrab of his plans to take him back to America and possibly adopt him, and promises that he will never be sent to an orphanage again. When difficulties arise in adopting Sohrab from Afghanistan, Amir tells Sohrab that he might have to stay in an orphanage for a while after all, and, Sohrab, devastated that Amir considers going back on his promise, attempts suicide. Amir finds Sohrab in time to save his life, and takes him back to the United States. However, Sohrab is emotionally damaged and refuses to speak. This continues on for about a year until his frozen emotions are temporarily thawed when Amir reminisces about his father, Hassan, while kite flying. Amir shows off some of Hassan’s tricks, and Sohrab begins to interact with Amir again. In the end Sohrab only shows a lopsided smile, but Amir takes to it with all his heart as he runs the kite for Sohrab, saying, "For you, a thousand times over." This is a play on the last words spoken to Hassan before the rape, and denotes the sense of atonement that surrounds the novel.

Characters

• Amir — protagonist and narrator of the novel, said to be born in 1963, in Kabul, who begins as a well-to-do boy in monarchical Afghanistan and later migrates to America following the downfall of the monarchy. Amir is Hassan's half brother; however, Amir doesn't know of their relationship until much later in his life, and Hassan never knows of the relationship.
• Hassan — a childhood friend of Amir, although Amir never explicitly admitted to this. Hassan is first thought to be the son of Ali (Baba's servant and inexplicit childhood friend) and Sanaubar; later in the story, Hassan was revealed to be the illegitimate son of Baba and Sanaubar. Hassan died without ever knowing about this fact.
• Assef — a sadistic, bisexual rapist from Amir's neighbourhood in Kabul, antagonist, who as a teenager rapes Hassan and who as an adult seems to sexually assault Hassan's son, Sohrab. Assef is the son of a German mother and Afghan father; as an adult Assef is a member of the Taliban. He has sympathies for Hitler and a hatred of Hazaras, giving a book about his "idol" to Amir at Amir's thirteenth birthday. Many years later, he becomes a Talib-executioner and pedophile. Sohrab severely damages one of Assef's eyes during Assef's fight with Amir.
• Baba — Amir's father. He is said to be born in the year 1933 (when the Afghan king begins his 40-year reign). He is described as a big, strong, healthy looking man with wild brown hair and beard. Baba is depicted to be of about 1.96 meter (6'5") in height. He is a bit of a party-maker, and known for his strength. (He is said to have fought with a black bear and won the fight, in his younger years). During the book, Baba seems to be a bit disappointed in his son Amir, who he wishes to be as much as a man as he is (but his son only reads books and lets others fight off bullies for him). After leaving Afghanistan for America, he ages quickly and dies young, at fifty-three, in 1986, of cancer. He lives long enough, though, to see his son Amir marry a young Afghan woman called Soraya. Many people attend his funeral.
• Ali — Baba's servant and inexplicit childhood friend. He was thought initially to be the father of Hassan. He was struck with polio which rendered his right leg useless.
• Rahim Khan — Baba's business partner and best friend in Afghanistan, later he was the one who tells Amir about Hassan's actual father. Amir liked him as a child, and Rahim Khan is also the one who invited Amir back to Afghanistan to pick up Sohrab. Later in the story, Rahim Khan goes off alone leaving a letter to Amir telling him not to find him. He dies peacefully knowing he has successfully made Amir the man Baba wanted him to be.
• Soraya — an Afghan woman living in Fremont, California. She marries Amir. Soraya wants to become a teacher. Before marrying Amir, she ran away with an Afghan boyfriend in Virginia, which according to Afghan tradition made her unsuitable for marriage, but Amir loved and married her anyway.
• Sohrab — son of Hassan, traumatized and sexually abused by the Taliban; Rahim Khan contacts Amir later in life in an attempt to get him to come back to Afghanistan to find Sohrab
• Sanaubar — Ali's wife who gives birth to Hassan as a result of an affair with Baba. She then leaves home to pursue the life of a gypsy, free from the strict discipline of Islam. She becomes involved with a soldier, who later nostalgically describes her "sugary little cunt" to Hassan. She later returns to Hassan in his adulthood to make up for her neglect of him when he was a child, providing a grandmother figure for Sohrab.
• Farid — bitter driver who is initially abrasive toward Amir but later befriends him. Farid's two daughters were killed by a land mine years back. Farid is Amir's means of transport, information, and knowledge of current Afghanistan when he returns

Reception

The novel was the third best seller for 2005 in the United States, according to Nielsen BookScan. It was also voted 2006's reading group book of the year. Hosseini's first novel headed a list of 60 titles submitted by entrants to the Penguin/Orange Reading Group prize (UK).