THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW

An Afghan Tale 
The author of "The Kite Runner" reflects on his homeland, and his good fortune. 

BY EMILY PARKER 
Saturday, October 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT 

WASHINGTON--In Khaled Hosseini's best-selling novel "The Kite Runner," a Hindi kid boasts that in his hometown the popular regional pastime of kite fighting has strict rules and regulations. This is not a wise thing to say to two Afghan boys in Kabul.

"Hassan and I looked at each other. Cracked up. The Hindi kid would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what the Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980s: that Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish customs but abhor rules. And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck."

I read these words aloud to Mr. Hosseini. "This is what the Afghans are known for, their very independent spirit. They are known for embracing custom but not necessarily laws," he says. This may shed some light on some of the current challenges of rebuilding the country. "Part of what's going on in Afghanistan is that," he says. "We are trying to build a country in Afghanistan with a central government, with a constitution, with a--at least on paper--a well-defined set of laws. And we're taking that and we're trying to implement that in a country that lives largely by custom. And I think it's a challenge to modernize a country that in many ways lives in a very, very traditional way."

Mr. Hosseini, who recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan, is quick to add that this challenge is not foolhardy, or misguided. Since the December 2001 Bonn Agreement, which led to an interim power-sharing arrangement, Mr. Hosseini says that there have been "limited, but tangible improvements." 

"It's not insignificant that we have held elections," he says. "It's not insignificant that we have a constitution, whether it's implemented correctly or not. But the mere presence of it--and the things that it says--is not insignificant. There have been some improvements in the areas of health and education. Just going back to Kabul, it's a dramatically different city! Neighborhoods that were destroyed during the civil war are back, roads have been paved. There should be electricity, uninterrupted, in Kabul by next year." 

Still, there's a long way to go. "I think we can and should build on positive developments in Afghanistan," Mr. Hosseini says. "But you have to be realistic, you have to realize that this is a country that is essentially recovering from 30 years of disaster. And you have to be patient. You have to make a long-term commitment. A genuine, true and long-term commitment."

I meet Mr. Hosseini in an office building in Washington, D.C. He is dressed elegantly in a dark, pinstriped suit, and seems almost apologetic about his attire. Mr. Hosseini is likely aware that he does not look the part of your typical novelist.

But then again, that is not his only role. Mr. Hosseini also serves as an envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and last month he took a 10-day trip to Afghanistan to assess the situation of the millions of refugees who have returned from Iran and Pakistan. He then came to Washington with an urgent message: We must not give up on Afghanistan.

Mr. Hosseini was born in Kabul in 1965. At the age of 15, shortly after the communist seizure of power and Soviet invasion, he and his family sought political asylum in the U.S. He now lives in California and was practicing medicine until a few years ago. He published his first novel, "The Kite Runner," in 2003. The book has been a stunning success, to put it mildly. It spent over 130 weeks on the New York Times best seller list, and publisher Riverhead Books has shipped 5.5 million paperback copies. Today still, you might easily spot "The Kite Runner" in a high-school classroom, on the subway or at the beach. You can even buy a copy at Starbucks. 

"I feel like I no longer have ownership of that book," Mr. Hosseini says, laughing. "It's like the kid that goes to college and you hear from them once in a while, and you wish them well, and other people give you news about how they're doing. . . . It's got its own legs."

After the "The Kite Runner" juggernaut, Mr. Hosseini did not rest on his laurels. His much-anticipated second novel, "A Thousand Splendid Suns," was published in May of this year and has since spent 20 weeks on the Times best-seller list. The book tells the story of a friendship between two women married to the same violent man, but more broadly paints a devastating picture of the mistreatment of women in Afghanistan. In the novel Mr. Hosseini describes the older of the two wives: "But after four years of marriage, Mariam saw how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid."

Four years after its publication, "The Kite Runner" is making a splash again, this time because of the film version that was supposed to hit theaters next month. The film showcases the ethnic tensions between Afghanistan's Pashtun and Hazara peoples, and features the rape of a young Hazara boy. This is so inflammatory that the families of the young Afghan actors feared that the boys might be in danger, and Paramount has delayed the release of the film so that they can get out of the country. 

When I spoke to Mr. Hosseini by phone this week, he seemed understandably upset by all this. "If I or anybody in this production thought that there would ever be a risk of threat to these children, I don't think anybody in their right mind would have gone forward," he told me. He stressed the importance of taking the families' concerns seriously, and putting safety first. "To me, the movie, the production, the book, everything is really secondary if the children and their families feel there is a reasonable risk of physical harm to them," he said.

But he also explained why the film, which features Afghan actors and dialogue in the Dari language, is so important. "Afghanistan has been in the news for a long time but there has been so little said about the Afghan people themselves. And this movie, it's a significant moment. This film is going to bring, in a way, Afghanistan into the living rooms of people around the world. In a positive light, in a human light. This is a story about these Afghan Muslim characters that does not begin with terrorism, does not begin with fanaticism. It's a story about ordinary human beings." When I saw a screening in New York, I understood why Mr. Hosseini is so happy with the adaptation: The film tells a moving story, with quiet dignity.

In his role as UNHCR envoy, Mr. Hosseini is working toward a brighter future for his native country. But to some extent, his novels serve a similar function. This is more obviously true for his second book, "A Thousand Splendid Suns," which zooms in on the oppression of Afghan women. "I have to admit that there was a bit more of a sense of mission," he says of that novel. "In that: Look this is an important story, it really hasn't been told in mainstream fiction form." 

Why fiction? "I just felt there were a lot of people speaking about Afghan women, and they were doing it in eloquent ways, and they were raising awareness about Afghan women, but in my mind fiction always has a very unique ability to do that," he says. Mr. Hosseini describes the power of the novel: "I think people connect a lot with things that are radically different from their own lives, through fiction. You can read a lot about a certain country, a certain culture, but fiction lifts you out of your chair and gives you an immediate access, immediate pass into that world." He adds: "I learned more about the Great Depression by reading Steinbeck than I ever did reading all my social studies and history books in high school, frankly."

If you look hard enough you can often find similar themes running through an author's works, and Mr. Hosseini's novels are no exception. Amir in "The Kite Runner" and Jalil in "A Thousand Splendid Suns" both struggle with feelings of deep regret for standing idly by while someone less fortunate was in need. When I ask Mr. Hosseini about this common theme, he seems momentarily reluctant to put himself on the psychoanalyst's couch. 

But then he says: "This is something that I do remember from growing up: I always felt privileged growing up, because of my background." He corrects himself: "Privileged is the wrong word, certainly comfortable, and I guess at some level I always questioned whether I was deserving of it, you always feel like whether this is something you earned." He continues: "My life has been a series of truly fortunate events. I got out of Afghanistan in the nick of time. My family left. I had my whole family, at least immediate family, with me." Mr. Hosseini made it to America, got a good education, had a successful livelihood--and then, of course, came "The Kite Runner."

Now, he tells me, he feels a sense of duty to "pay back." Is he doing that with his novels? "I am, but I would be doing them regardless. I'd be writing regardless, because it's what I love doing. . . . There's got to be a little effort, it's got to put you out a little bit."

This brings our conversation back to Mr. Hosseini's work with UNHCR, and Afghanistan's current predicament. Mr. Hosseini lists some of the country's woes: the insurgency in the south, the plight of the refugees, opium production, abject poverty and suicide bombing, to name just a few. There is also a less obvious, but still potent danger: that the West will lose interest in Afghanistan. 

Mr. Hosseini would argue that this is already happening. "Essentially Afghanistan has become a very unsexy country," he says. "Yes, what is going on in Iraq is enormous, but the global focus seems to have shifted quite a bit from Afghanistan. And I think that's dangerous. I really think that's dangerous. The most important countries in the world? If you put it that simply, Afghanistan is one of them. And we can't, we meaning the international community, I think we can't afford to let this country slide back and lose what we've achieved there." For one thing, letting Afghanistan descend into chaos could make it vulnerable to extremism. "The only thing the Taliban brought was stability, they brought security." Mr. Hosseini says. "That's not a small thing."

In "A Thousand Splendid Suns," Laila, the younger of an abusive husband's two wives, listens to a taxi driver describe how his two sisters were killed in a Soviet attack. " 'I'm sorry,' Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. . . . Laila thinks of her own life and all that has happened to her, and she is astonished that she too has survived, that she is alive and sitting in this taxi listening to this man's story."

Every Afghan has a story, even if many don't have the opportunity or resources to share it with the world. This is where Mr. Hosseini comes in. In his work, some Afghans may see slices of their own lives. Other readers just lose themselves in the tale. 

"I am convinced that people love to be told stories," Mr. Hosseini says. "And I have not been blessed with the linguistic gifts of other writers, I acknowledge that, but there's something to be said for you know, a good story." He laughs. "As old-fashioned as that may sound." 

Ms. Parker is assistant editorial features editor at The Wall Street Journal.