Khaled Hosseini enjoys telling stories. In his debut novel The Kite Runner, he narrates a deeply reflective tale. Hosseini’s work provides an indigenous look into an Afghan experience, which some critiques have considered as a more realistic account of Afghans and Afghanistan than any work produced by even the best journalists. We spoke with Hosseini about his novel, perspectives and forthcoming work.
Farhad Azad: What do you think your novel has provided in representing Afghanistan to the Western readers?
Khaled Hosseini: I think –and hope– that the novel has provided Western readers with a fresh perspective. Too often, stories about Afghanistan center around the various wars, the opium trade, the war on terrorism. Preciously little is said about the Afghan people themselves, their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they manage abroad as exiles. I hope The Kite Runner gives the Western reader some insight into and a sense of the identity of Afghan people that they may not get from mainstream news media. Fiction is a wonderful medium to convey such things. And I hope that the book helps humanize the Afghan people and put a personal face to what has happened there. I get many letters and e-mails from readers who say how much more compassion they feel for Afghanistan and Afghans after reading this book –some even offering to help or donate money. We forget sometimes that fiction can be a powerful medium that way.
FA: What is the general and specific reactions of the Western and Afghan readers to your work?
KH: My Western readers have had a very positive reaction to The Kite Runner. Because the themes of friendship, betrayal, guilt, redemption, the uneasy love between fathers and sons are universal themes and not specifically Afghan, the book has been able to reach across cultural, racial, religious, and gender gaps to resonate with readers of varying backgrounds.
The reaction from my Afghan readers has also been overwhelmingly positive. I get regular letters and e-mails from fellow Afghans who have enjoyed the book, seen their own lives, experiences, and memories played out on the pages. So I have been thrilled with the response from my own community.
Some, however, have called the book divisive and objected to some of the issues raised in the book, namely; racism, discrimination, ethnic inequality etc. Those are sensitive issues in the Afghan world, but they are also important ones, and I certainly do not believe they should be taboo. The role of fiction is to talk about difficult subjects, precisely about things that make us cringe or make us uncomfortable, or things that generate debate and perhaps some understanding. I think talking plainly about issues that have hounded Afghanistan for a long time is a healthy and a necessity, particularly at this crucial time.
FA: Why do you think these taboo topics such as “racism, discrimination, ethnic inequality” in the Afghan society should be exposed and discussed in the Afghan Diaspora? Why do you think such topics are avoided and not discussed by the general Afghan Diaspora? And how do you think the Afghan Diaspora can better discuss these topics?
KH: Fiction is often like a mirror. It reflects what is beautiful and noble in us, but also at time what is less than flattering, things that make us wince and not want to look anymore. Issues like discrimination and persecution, racism, etc. are such things. The rifts between our different people in Afghanistan have existed for a long time and continue to exist today, no matter the politically correct official party line. Because these issues of ethnic differences and problems between the different groups continue to hound our society and threaten to undermine our progress toward a better tomorrow, I think –possibly naively– these issues are best dealt with face on. I don’t see how we can move forward from our past; how we can overcome our differences, if we refuse to even acknowledge the past and the differences.
FA: The Afghanistan of the 1960s – 1970s has been described as the “Golden Years” by the majority of the older generation of Afghans in the Diaspora. You vividly describe this period through the eyes of the novel’s main character Amir, which is also a period of history that has not really been disclosed by Western writers. Yet your approach is also critical of the bitter, unjust realities of that era, contradictory to the one-sided impressions of the older Afghan generation. What is your response?
KH: My intention was to write about Afghanistan in a balanced fashion. I also remember the 1960’s and particularly the early to mid 1970’s as a Golden Era of sorts. I, like many Afghans, look back on those years with fondness and remembrance. I have tried to portray that era lovingly through the eyes of Amir. However, that society was not perfect. There were inequities and inequalities that got lost in the glow of remembrance. We should also remember that there was racism, discrimination, rampant nepotism, and social barriers that were all but impossible to cross from, at times, entire classes of people. One example that I highlight in my book is the mistreatment of the Hazara people, who were all but banned from the higher appointments of society and forced to play a second-class citizen role. A critical eye toward that era is, I believe, as important as a loving eye, because there are lessons to be learned from our own past.
FA: The first two sections of the novel cover 1970s Afghanistan and 1980s Northern California, which you have personally experienced. How did you write so clearly the accounts of life under 1990s Taliban Afghanistan?
KH:I primarily relied on the accounts of Afghans who had lived in Afghanistan in that era. Over the years, at Afghan gatherings, parties, melahs [picnics], I had spoken to various Afghans who had lived in Taliban-ruled Kabul. When I sat down to write the final third of The Kite Runner, I found I had unintentionally accumulated over the years a wealth of anecdotes, telling details, stories, and accounts about Kabul in those days. So I did not have to do much research at all. Of course, I also relied on media reports through Afghan online magazines, TV, radio, etc. But most of it was from Afghan eyewitness accounts.
FA: You had mentioned that the character Hassan was the original protagonist of the novel. Why did you change it to Amir?
Amir is so much more conflicted than Hassan. He is such a troubled character, so flawed. He is often a contradiction. He wants to be a good person and is horrified at his own moral shortcomings even as he can’t stop himself. In other words, he is a better protagonist for a novel -maybe I should say more dynamic– than Hassan, who is so firmly rooted in goodness and integrity. There was a lot more room for character development with Amir than Hassan.
FA: What specific aspects of the Afghan Diaspora are represented in Amir’s character?
KH: Nostalgia and longing for the homeland. The preservation of culture and language: Amir marries an Afghan woman and stays an active member of the Afghan community in the East Bay; the hard-working immigrant value system; and some sense of survivor’s guilt, which I think many of us, particularly in sunny California, have felt at one time or another.
FA: Some critics have stated that the ending of your novel is “too clean” and have attributed this to perhaps you trying to “make sense” of the many years of turbulence in Afghanistan by providing closure with the ending. What is your reaction?
KH: I think it is largely a matter of taste. What strikes one person as “too neat” makes a resounding impact with another reader and registers as a welcomed sense of closure. I did not want to end my book with chaos and hopelessness. The Kite Runner ends on a hopeful –if melancholic– note. Which is how I also feel about the future of Afghanistan –guarded optimism. To some extent, as a writer, you do try to make sense of the turbulence and chaos, and with the words at your disposal you have the option and power to do so. The question is whether you do it with integrity and honesty and whether you stay true to your characters and their dilemmas. I believe I have. Or I tried, at least. As always, the reader is the judge.
FA: Will your next work also take a historic journey to Afghanistan’s recent past?
KH: The writing process has always been full of surprises for me. The story takes unexpected twists and turns and that, to me, is one of the joys of writing. Which is to say I rarely can describe with much detail what I am working on. I begin writing and see where the story takes me. That said, the novel I have been working on is also set in Afghanistan and deals with its recent history. It has a female protagonist and deals more with women’s issues than The Kite Runner did. Beyond that, I’ll be able to tell you more in 12-18 months.
FA: What classical and contemporary Afghan literature where you influenced by?
KH: The writing of The Kite Runner was not influenced by any Afghan literature per se, though I have admired the works of writers such as Mr. Akram Osman. I read quite a bit of fiction in English, and I would say that my style and approach to writing is rooted in a western style of writing prose. That said, Afghanistan is full of great storytellers, and I was raised around people who were very adept at capturing an audience’s attention with their storytelling skills. I have been told that there is an old fashioned sense of story telling in The Kite Runner. I would agree. It’s what I like to read, and what I like to write.
FA: How important is it to tell a story of a people from an indigenous perspective rather than from an outsider’s point of view?
KH: I think your specific background, your upbringing, your intimacy with the culture, customs, language and ways of your homeland gives you an angle that a writer who is not indigenous to your country may lack. It gives you a unique perspective, an angle. That is not to say that an outsider cannot write as well about your culture. I am thinking of Andre Dubus III and the wonderful job he did bringing to life Colonel Behrani in House of Sand and Fog. But usually, being indigenous allows you a little authenticity and if you write with honesty and integrity, then it may show on the pages.
FA: You always say that you want to tell stories. What drives you do this?
KH: I don’t quite know where the drive to tell a story comes from, for me or anyone else. Nor do I really know where the stories themselves come from. What I can say that for me, as I suspect for many other writers, a story grips me and demands to be told. The drive to tell a story becomes a compulsion. So there is little choice left. You either tell the story or go around absent-minded and in a half-daze. Stephen King once said that if you have a story to tell and the skill to tell it, and you don’t, then you are a monkey. The point is stories, good stories at least, demand to be written.
If it were done, when 'tis done 