A Thousand Splendid Suns - Book review


Again Mr Hosseini takes us back to Afghanistan for another grim look at life under the Taliban in a sort of soap opera style compressed history of how they got there, viewed through the eyes of a myriad of unfortunate characters. A thousand splendid suns spans thirty years of conflict in Afghanistan, from the 1970s to 2003. We follow the plight of the two main heroines Mariam and laila, both stuck in an abusive marriage to Rasheed, devoid of love and fraught with tensions. Mariam and laila’s relationship is complicated beginning as rivals but slowly transforming into their own family unit offering each other companionship as they become more and more isolated from the world and protection from the excesses of Rasheed.

As in kite runner the story concentrates on the emotional journeys of the main characters and their interaction with each other whilst showing us glimpses of life in Kabul as part of the backdrop, including a return to the bloody Ghazi stadium, and a description of the Titanic fervour that gripped the city when pirated films where available to watch on banned TV’s. It’s these details about life in Kabul that make the book for me combined with Hosseini’s ability to write a women’s life story despite being a man himself which is quite a talent.

The kite runner was always going to be a hard act to follow and in all honestly I did not enjoy A Thousand Splendid Suns quite as much, most likely because I related to the characters in the first novel better. However this is still an extremely well written book with all the gut wrenching and emotional ups and downs of the kite runner. I whole heartedly recommend reading A Thousand Splendid Suns.

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