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Hosseini blends historical fact and fiction
Writing a tale about love, redemption and the heartbreaking friendship between two Afghanistani boys not only gave Khaled Hosseini, acclaimed author of the best-selling novel “The Kite Runner,” the chance to reconnect with memories of his own childhood growing up in Afghanistan, he says, but also the opportunity to communicate the story of his nation’s tragic decline to readers across the U.S. and beyond.
A near-sellout crowd of faculty, staff, students and members of the local community, including more than 1,3000 students from about 50 area high schools, turned out yesterday in Alumni Arena to hear Hosseini speak about writing, politics and the ancient art of kite-flying as part of the 2008-09 Distinguished Speaker’s Series. Joyce Kryszak, news and cultural affairs producer for WBFO, served as moderator for the event.
“Growing up in Afghanistan, the central images of my childhood…were the kites,” said Hosseini, who recalled spending days on end with his brother and other neighborhood children flying kites in the streets of Kabul.
“That took place at a time when Afghanistan was at peace—when landmines and refugees and 9/11 and bombings and wars hadn’t happened—and by and large people lived happily,” he added. “For me, the kites represent that era.”
The moment in the novel signaling the end of that innocence also is the one about which the greatest controversy arose following the 2007 release of a film adapted from Hosseini’s novel. In the scene, Hassan, a poor boy whose serves with his father in the home of his friend, Amir, is sexually assaulted by a gang of teenage boys—an action that Amir fails to try to prevent.
“This is one of the few instances in the book where I made a conscious effort at a metaphor,” said Hosseini, who compared the attack on Hassan to the actions of the brutal regimes that came to power after the end of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1980s. “A lot of people in Afghanistan feel that they played a very big part in the demise of the Soviet Union…and yet after the strategic goals of the West were met… the international community stood back and watched as, according to many Afghans, the country was violated by warlords and by corrupt officials and by extremist and terrorists in the Taliban.”
The controversy of the scene arose not from this symbolism, however, but from the perception of some Afghanis that a depiction of sexual violence was highly shameful for the actors involved.
“In hindsight, if we had anticipated that it would be a serious threat to the lives of the boys, nobody would have cast them in the movie,” said Hosseini. “Everybody envisioned this film being a gift to the Afghan community.”
The release of the film was delayed by the studio until the child actors could be relocated to United Arab Emirates (UAE) to ensure their safety, he added, noting that three of the boys currently are enrolled in boarding schools in the UAE. The fourth has since returned to Afghanistan, he said.
But despite this trouble, Hosseini said the general response to “The Kite Runner”—as well as his more recent novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns”—has been overwhelmingly positive. “
The wonderful thing about books is that if they’re written honestly, they can appeal to that which is universal in all of us,” he said, “and I hope that through these books, the humanity of the people, their pride, the humility, their culture, their rich tradition and past in some fashion shines through and that Afghanistan acquires a human dimension other than just what you read about in the newspaper…that it resonates with you in a much more real way.”
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