Khaled Hosseini is the author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns… both NYTimes best sellers. If you haven’t read them… stop what you’re doing…. switch over to amazon.com and get these now! Don’t come back to my blog until you can show me your receipt proof of purchase!!! lol!
I just got back home from the “Conversation with Khaled Hosseini” event here in Santa Rosa, CA. Very nicely done. It actually reminded me of the show “In the Actor’s Studio” where that guy interviews actors on a stage w/an audience. The auditorium was PACKED and my 2 friends and i were skeptical about actually getting our books signed. We actually lucked out and got in the line early- only about 20 people in front of us!
The school headmaster was the interviewer and Dr. Hosseini was very humble and funny, down to earth. He is a doctor at Kaiser in the Bay Area. The key things I got from the discussion was that the Kite Runner wasn’t autobiographical- even tho it did have some similarities to his 11 years he lived in Afghanistan. He grew up wealthy, with servants and his parents were involved/known in the community. He did have a servant friend who he spent time with (much older tho) who had traits like Hassan. There was no huge betrayal or assault involved in that friendship tho!! And kites are a big deal- a seasonal tradition that is now forbidden by the Taliban.
He also said something that I know applies to me – we all “know” terrible things go on elsewhere, but the news reports facts/statistics and the truth is out there, but filtered, watered down. It’s easy to become desensitized because of the constant barrage. In fiction writing, the author’s story is where the truth of the people lie and that is how we learn, empathize and grow. That is how people become involved, or find a commonality between different cultures. That is where we expend our energy, become emotionally involved. The news just depresses me -there are no stories of hope! These books tell of the human struggle in its entirety- the good that is there along with the bad. Authors who write “true fiction” have more power to touch the masses, esp when their book becomes a best seller! This is where we spend time getting to connect with the subject.
He also spoke about his 2nd book and how he “found” the women in that book (his characters). They are fictional, but they could be any Afghani woman. The story of how the women live there, are treated and how the Taliban has erased any progress of women’s rights made before they took over. He was very sad that they have so far to go when it comes to women’s rights as well as racism between tribes of Afghans- mentioned in the Kite Runner. He said that the common reaction from the Afghans about the Kite Runner was “why did you have to bring up the race thing? Why didn’t you talk instead about how great we are!?!” It is impolite to discuss these things and so change is hard – centuries of instilled beliefs. My guess is that even the women don’t even know how oppressed they truly are. I haven’t finished ATSS yet… halfway thru!
One last thing, the tickets cost $22 or $100 and 100% of the proceeds went to an organization called Truth in Education- the author didn’t take a dime!
I believe there’s a link to this organization on his website… www.khaledhosseini.com
Sorry about the “book”! Hard to condense an hour + of such an interesting topic!!! I won’t post a pic of him since I don’t have permission, but I will post the obligatory Groupie Shot….
LaRae & Lorraine, my BFF lol, posing near a Snoopy statue dressed up (i believe) like that Harry Potter dude…. Charles Schultz lived here and was active in Santa Rosa, and the big thing lately is artist’s version of Snoopy for Charity. Maybe I’ll hunt a few down and write about those sometime this summer….. Anyway, I digress… the next pic is the 3 of us at my arm’s length. A woman behind us offered to take our pic for us after seeing this feeble attempt (i don’t normally have a double chin!) but where’s the fun in that? Both the other gals actually resemble Paris and Nicole Hilton, my camera sucks…
