Thousand Splendid Suns

THE RICHARD & JUDY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER‘A suspenseful epic’ Daily Telegraph ‘A triumph’ Financial Times ‘Heartbreaking’ Mail on Sunday ‘Deeply moving’ Sunday Times

Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.

In case you’re wondering whether A Thousand Splendid Suns is as good as The Kite Runner, here’s the answer: No. It’s better, A masterful narrative … He is a storyteller of dizzying power, Hosseini has that rare thing, a Dickensian knack for storytelling, A gripping tale … It is, too a powerful portrait of female suffering and endurance under the Taliban, A beautifully crafted and disturbing story … As unforgettable as The Kite Runner, this novel places us in Afghanistan with an open heart

Khaled Hosseini is the author of The Kite Runner, which was a major film and was a Book of the Decade, chosen by The Times, Daily Telegraph and Guardian. A Thousand Splendid Suns was the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year in 2008. And the Mountains Echoed was chosen for the Richard & Judy Summer Book Club in 2014, and readers voted it as their favourite of all the titles. Hosseini is also a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Refugee Agency, and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation which provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. Sea Prayer, his fourth book, was inspired by Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed upon the beach in Turkey in September 2015. Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and lives in northern California.khaledhosseini.com @khaledhosseini