A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Khaled Hosseini. Khaled Hosseini is an
Afghan-American novelist, UNHCR Ambassador and former Physician.
This book is a story of two girls: Mariam and Laila, who were living completely differently but
brought together by a war in Afghanistan. Both girls’ lives change completely when Taliban take control of Kabul. The book is divided into four parts: part one is Mariam’s life story, part two is Laila’s life story, in part three we see that both lives get connected and how they started to live with each other, and in part four, we see the ending of the story.
Mariam was daughter of Jalil, a rich man in Herat, Afghanistan. Mariam’s mother was the ex-wife of Jalil and now they live in a small ‘Kolba’ which Jalil had built for them about two miles
away from Herat. After Mariam’s mother commited suicide, Jalil brought Mariam back to Herat in
his house where after a week Jalil married her to his friend Rasheed who is a shoemaker and lives in Kabul. Rasheed is 45 years old and about 30 years older than her. There were many
Characters in Part One but they were not for much long in the story like Mullah Faizullah, BiBi
Jo, Jalil, Jalil’s other three wives and his children’s. The writer completely focused on Rasheed and Mariam in Part One.
In Part two, where we saw Laila’s life story, we saw that Laila is a intelligent girl who live
happily with her father and mother in Kabul, Afghanistan. She had two brothers who left home
for Jihad against Communist Regime. She had a very close friend and his neighbor Tariq. Tariq
and Laila also love each other. In part Two, there were also many characters like Tariq’s parents,
Laila’s childhood Friends and her neighbors. Laila was fully loving his life with Tariq and her
Parents but then War completely change her life. When Tariq had to left her due to rockets firing
at Kabul and killing hundreds of innocent civilians including a childhood friend of Laila. They
made love that day when Tariq left for Peshawer,Pakistan and Laila got Pregnant. After
seventeen days, Laila’s parents also decided to leave Kabul but a rocket hitted their house and
Laila’s parents also got killed. Her neighbor Rasheed and Mariam took care of her after her
parents and Rasheed married thirteen year old Laila by giving news from his friend that her lover
Tariq also died when a Rocket hit their van when they were getting out of Kabul border.
In part Three and Four, Laila got married to Rasheed, Laila was also pregnant carrying the son of
Tariq. Mariam then don’t even like to talk to Laila until Laila give birth to a girl whom she
named Aziza. After few years, Laila again got a baby and this time a boy she got, named Zalmai,
who was the actual son of Rasheed. Few years passed when Zalmai turned to five years old
Rasheed started to beat both of his wives and they were very sick of it. One day Rasheed try to
suffocate Laila and Mariam cut his throat with a shovel. Laila decided to leave Kabul but
Mariam refused because she wanted to get what she deserve for killing her husband. So, Laila, Tariq, Aziza and Zalmai, all four of them escape from Kabul and went to Murree, Laila married
to Tariq and they started their new life. Mariam got sentence to death and shot down in front of
large Crowd in Kabul.
A thousand splendid suns comprehends the life of women living in Afghanistan and how they
are treated there. Many little and immature girls forcely married to twice or thrice of their age
men. After reading this book, all you could feel will be sadness and sympathy for Afghan
women. Even though the story is fictional but everyone knows that the reality is also not
different. The Book is more than just a story, it also teaches the man that he shouldn’t treat
women like Rasheed treated Laila and Mariam, no matter how worse it gets. She might have
been through alot in the past or dream she want to fulfill with you. So, it is best for a man to
treat her woman without judging her like Tariq did in the story. Afghanistan women had faced
alot of discrimination and cruelty, and this thing can be observed from this book.
Khaled Hosseini writing is so well and you can feel realness in it. It feels like characters are
telling you story of their lives face to face. According to me, the good thing about this book is
that you will not get bored even though it is much lengthy, about 360 pages. It is very easy read
which forces us to think about things that we had never thought about. It is written in such a
way that your excitement level increase whenever you finish a page. This book should be read
because Khaled Hosseini personally visit Kabul, talk to women who live their and get to know
about their past lives and observe the lives of women now living in Afghanistan. So from there,
Khaled Hosseini decide to write something for Afghan women to raise voice and give deserving
rights to them. The book has a theme of struggle, Sacrifice and Hardship which also make this
book very emotional.