The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner is the debut novel of Afghan author Khaled Hosseini. It was published in 2003, during a period of heightened Western interest in AfghanistanA mountainous Asian country, slightly larger than France, whose neighbours include Pakistan, Iran and China. following the invasion of that country by a US-led coalition in 2001. Kite running is a traditional Afghan sport in which competitors try to cut down each other's kites as they are flying. The novel spans several decades in Afghan history, from the peaceful early 1970s, to the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet UnionOfficially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). A powerful group of communist republics, the biggest being Russia, that existed from 1922 to 1991. in 1979, the civil war of the 1990s and the rise of the TalibanA violent fundamentalist Islamic movement that enforces sharia law and denies education to women. regime. It addresses many cultural trends that impacted Afghans during these periods, such as persistent ethnic tension between the majority Pashtun population and the marginalised Hazara minority. The novel's first part narrates the childhood of Amir, a Pashtun boy growing up in a middle-class family in KabulThe city became the capital of Afghanistan during the reign of Timur Shah Durrani, the second Afghan emir, in 1776.. Amir enters and wins a kite running tournament, hoping to win the approval of his father, Baba. However, the victory is marred by the assault of Amir's friend Hassan, a Hazera. The second part of the novel traces Amir and Baba's experience of adapting to life in the United States in the 1980s, where they had relocated following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the 2000s, Amir returns to Afghanistan, where he must most confront how his country has changed under Taliban rule.