"
A Thousand Splendid Suns is an ambitious work. Once again the setting is Afghanistan, but this time [Hosseini] has taken the last 33 years of that country's tumultuous history of war and oppression and told it on an intimate scale, through the lives of two women."--
The New York Times "Spectacular. . . . Hosseini's writing makes our hearts ache, our stomachs clench and our emotions reel. . . . Hosseini mixes the experiences of these women with imagined scenarios to create a fascinating microcosm of Afghan family life. He shows us the interior lives of the anonymous women living beneath identity-diminishing burqas... Hosseini writes in gorgeous and stirring language of the natural beauty and colorful cultural heritage of his native Afghanistan. . . . Hosseini tells this saddest of stories in achingly beautiful prose through stunningly heroic characters whose spirits somehow grasp the dimmest rays of hope."--
USA Today "Just as good, if not better, than Hosseini's best-selling first book,
The Kite Runner"--
Newsweek "Compelling"--
New York Magazine "Hosseini revisits Afghanistan for a compelling story that gives voice to the agonies and hopes of another group of innocents caught up in a war. . . . Mesmerizing . . .
A Thousand Splendid Suns is the painful, and at times violent, yet ultimately hopeful story of two women's inner lives. Hosseini's bewitching narrative captures the intimate details of life in a world where it's a struggle to survive, skillfully inserting this human story into the larger backdrop of recent history."--
San Francisco Chronicle "Hosseini . . . has followed his debut novel with another work of strong storytelling and engaging characters. . . . The story pulses with life. . . . Khaled Hosseini is simply a marvelously moving storyteller."--
San Jose Mercury News "Hosseini's story . . . rings true as a universal story about victims of cruelty and those who lack the most fundamental of human rights. . . . Hosseini's work is uplifting, enlightening, universal. The author's love for his characters and for his country is palpable. In the end,
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a love letter to a country and to a people. It is a celebration of endurance and survival in the face of unspeakable tragedy. This is a love song to anyone who has ever had a broken heart and to anyone who has ever felt powerless and yet still dares to dream. And yes, Hosseini has done it again."--
Fort Worth Star-Telegram "The novel is beautifully written with descriptive details that will haunt you long after you finish reading it."--
Dallas Morning News "This [novel] tells the startling story of domestic adversaries who discover that survival in a horrific world is nearly impossible without compassion, love and solidarity. . . Hosseini's prose . . . can stun a reader with its powerful, haunting images."--
Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Absolutely compelling on every level. It's nearly impossible for a novel--a work of fantasy and fabrication--to deliver a formidable blow, a pounding of the senses, a reeling so staggering that we are convinced the characters and their dilemmas are genuine. Such a persuasion is particularly difficult when the setting is Afghanistan, a country and culture many see as too strange for recognition, for empathy. But that's what Khaled Hosseini does again and again with
A Thousand Splendid Suns."--
Chicago Sun-Times "Hosseini has the storytelling gift . . . [
A Thousand Splendid Suns] offers us the sweep of historic upheavals narrated with the intimacy of family and village life. . . . What keeps this novel vivid and compelling are Hosseini's eye for the textures of daily life and his ability to portray a full range of human emotions, from the smoldering rage of an abused wife to the early flutters of maternal love when a woman discovers she is carrying a baby. . . . Hosseini's illuminating book [is] a worthy sequel to
The Kite Runner."--
Los Angeles Times "Many of us learned much from
The Kite Runner. There is much more to be learned from
A Thousand Splendid Suns . . . a brave, honorable, big-hearted book"--
The Washington Post Book World "The author's fans won't be disappointed with
A Thousand Splendid Suns--if anything, this book shows at even better advantage Hosseini's storytelling gifts."--
New York Daily News "Hosseini has created two enormously winning female characters in Mariam and Laila, Afghan women born into very different circumstances but who have the same problems."--
Minneapolis Star-Tribune "[Hosseini] is a writer of unique sensitivities. . . . Hosseini embraces an old-fashioned storytelling unconcerned with literary hipness, unafraid of sentimentality, unworried about the sort of Dickensian coincidences that most contemporary American writers consider off-limits. . . . We are lucky . . . to have a writer of Hosseini's storytelling ambitions interpreting his culture and history for us with another large-hearted novel. . . . Despite the unjust cruelties of our world, the heroines of
A Thousand Splendid Suns do endure, both on the page and in our imagination."--
Miami Herald
Two women born a generation apart witness the destruction of their home and family in wartorn Kabul, incurring losses over the course of thirty years that test the limits of their strength and courage.