Overview
Two Afghan women from different generations form an unlikely bond of friendship that gives them the strength to endure decades of war, poverty, and domestic abuse.
Hosseini's second novel, published in 2007, tells the story of two Afghan women, Mariam and Laila, whose lives intersect through marriage to the same abusive man in Kabul. The novel spans from the 1960s through the American invasion of 2001. Hosseini has said he wrote the book partly to counter reader perceptions — rooted partly in The Kite Runner — that Afghan women were passive victims.
Key Ideas
Female resilience
Mariam and Laila demonstrate extraordinary courage and sacrifice in a society that denies them basic rights.
Love as resistance
In a world of violence, the bonds between women and their children become acts of defiance.
Hope persists
Even in the most hopeless circumstances, the desire for a better life drives people to extraordinary acts.
Who should read this
Readers who found The Kite Runner emotionally powerful and want more. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a stronger novel in some ways — the two-women structure gives it the range to cover more of Afghan history, and the book's treatment of female friendship and sacrifice is one of the most powerful I have read.
Who might skip it
Skip if the domestic-violence material would be too hard for you — the book's portrayal is realistic and unsparing. Skip also if you dislike novels whose emotional stakes lean toward the melodramatic; Hosseini writes big emotions, and this is not a book that tries to be subtle.
The verdict
Hosseini's best novel. The double-protagonist structure solves the limitations of the first-person Kite Runner, and the relationship between Mariam and Laila is more interesting than anything in that earlier book. The final chapters are devastating in the best sense. Read alongside The Kite Runner, not as a substitute for it.
"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls."
— Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
If you liked this
The Kite Runner for the companion novel. My Forbidden Face by Latifa for the memoir counterpart.