The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.

Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.

The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park. --Lisa Alward, Amazon.ca

2008-09-28 A-level English showed me the wonders of hosseini

when i was given this book to read for my A-level english i was a little more than hesitant of it as it wasnt really a book i would read, the last being harry potter but strangely i found myself gripped. Not wanting to divulge information as many others have, in short this is a tale of betrayal, redemption and loyalty in a time none of us could imagine the afghan monarchy had fallen and the republic taken over leading to the devastating russian invasion, writen with such description and power you are thrown into a world of poverty and decay where things happen that make you cringe, make you smile and even at times make you want to cry. all in all i read this book in a few short days not wanting to put it down, the book can be slow at times but if you keep going it is a great read and i would reacomend i to anyone 16+ as it is a truly inspirational read that will leave you craving more hosseini so i am now going on to read a thousand splendid suns which he has writen. thankyou for reading and i beg you to buy this book as it will change your reading world. also the film is a very poor representation of the power of the book.