The Kite Runner

Image credit: Bloomsbury Publishing

It’s always wonderful to read a book that you become so immersed in and captured by that you know, within thirty pages, that you’ve got another title to add to your ‘favourite books of all time’ list. My latest addition: The Kite Runner.

The books tells the story of Amir, a twelve year old Afghani boy living a privileged life and enjoying his childhood in the company of his best friend Hassan. Amir has his sights set on winning the local kite-flying tournament and loyal Hassan promises to help him. But that same afternoon something terrible happens to Hassan that shatters both their lives. After the Russians invade Amir and his father flee to America to start new lives, but years later Amir is contacted by an old friend and must travel back to an unrecognisable Afghanistan under Taliban rule where he has one shot at ‘being good again’.

One of the most traumatic and heartbreaking novels that I’ve read, The Kite Runner is a story that is so close to the bone for so many people that it could almost be autobiographical. Indeed, Hosseini’s prose and intimacies with the settings and characters, as well as his use of the first person register, makes you feel as though you are reading someone’s real-life and traumatic story, which is what gives the book its immense power to wrench at the heartstrings.

Simple narration, frighteningly recognisable scenarios, modern history, powerful imagery, and genuine, down-to-earth characters suffering from Herculean ethical conflicts fill the pages with intrigue, despair, drama, and hope; it would be a cliché to compare the reading experience to that of a rollercoaster, but that truly is the most apt description.

Image credit: bog-ide

The Kite Runner is one of the most incredible and immersive books that I’ve come across and sits in an exclusive genre where fictional characters become so real that their stories are autobiographies. The compelling themes of trauma, guilt, identity, and redemption are, to borrow an image from the book, the glass tar that keeps us airborne; sailing along, dipping with the drama, and ascending again when a happy ending is in sight.

Truly, this is one of the most compelling, moving, and beautiful books that I have ever read and while some of the events are horrifying and confronting, the overall experience reading The Kite Runner has been one of the best. I’ve never wanted to have a book constantly in my hands more than I did with this one! You must read it!

The Kite Runner is the first novel written by Khaled Hosseini. It was first published in 2003 by Riverhead Books and has since sold over two million copies and been adapted into a film starring Khalid Abdalla.