By: Ashley Estrada

Hosseini was a novelist and a physician. He wrote The Kite Runner in 2003, and sold over twelve million copies worldwide (Wikipedia).

The novel was the number three best seller for 2005 in the United States, according to Nielsen BookScan (Wikipedia).

Hosseini’s Education

Hosseini received his diploma from Independence High School, San Jose in 1984.

He then enrolled at Santa Carla University where he accomplished his bachelor’s degree in Biology in 1988.

Further, he earned his M.D. from University of California, San Diego’s School of Medicine in 1993.

“…Hosseini comes from a large, prominent family in Kabul. His father was a diplomat and his mother was a teacher. He's the oldest of five children raised in a secular household. And while there's no single childhood event that haunts him, Hosseini says he always felt guilty about his privilege. ‘I was raised in an affluent life in a very poor country, and you always have that sense of guilt about your own good fortune,’ he says. …”

(Writers Write)

Amir and Hassan are childhood friends despite the fact that Hassan is Amir’s servant. As children and best friends, they go through a hardship when Amir dos not stand up for Hassan one day against neighborhood kids. It was a horrific and traumatizing event. Hassan, being the genuine friend and person he is, never mentions it, but throughout Amir’s entire life he regrets this more than anything. They never see each other again after Amir gets Hassan and his father to leave their house forever. Even so, the rest of his life is spend knowing he must make this up to him somehow.

Amir was a more wealthy child growing up, due to his father being a lawyer. He starved for his father’s attention his entire life, always feeling as though he did not amount up to him. He thought this was because he was different. He was different than his father (Baba) he believed because he was not as brave, and more of a push over. He was a writer, and that wasn’t as acceptable in his family. Everything he did was to get his father’s attention and to make him proud. It always seemed as though Baba even gave the servant’s son Hassan more attention than his own son.

Hassan was a genuine friend. We all wish to have a friend as good as Hassan. He was always willing to put himself on the line for Amir, and didn’t blame him when Amir was never ready to do the same for him. He went through a lot as a child, and never held grudges. He was mature for his age, and truly the best thing that was in Amir’s life. He starved for more education. He was naïve and believed too many of Amir’s stories when he would mess with him.

In this novel, Assef is the rapist. Even when faced with all the wrong he has done in his life, he feels no remorse. Assef just represents pure evil in everyone’s life in this book. (He claimed in the book that Hitler was his role model).

“A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.”

In the novel, this is something that Baba says to his friend Rahim. He is referring to his son, Amir. This said a lot about both Amir and Baba, and that is why I like it so much. It is really sad when you think about a father saying this about his son, but really, it is true. Later in the story, we find out that he is the same way and lives with the same type of guilt as Amir. This quote just shows how he feels about weak people like this. It sums up a lot of character in this tiny sentence.

WORK CITED

"Wikipedia Khaled Hosseini - Google Search." Google. Web. 30 July 2010. <http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wikipedia khaled hosseini&aq=0&aqi=g2&aql=&oq=wikipedia khaled&gs_rfai=>.

"Khaled Hosseini Discusses The Kite Runner." Writers Write -- Writer's Blog and Books, Writing and Publishing Resource. Web. 30 July 2010. <http://www.writerswrite.com/blog/1105051>.

Loyn, David. "The Kite Runner." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 30 July 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kite_Runner>.