Annotation #3 – November 14, 2007
Title: The Kite Runner
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publication: 2003
Number of Pages: 371
Genre: Literary Fiction
Geographical Setting: Kabul, Afghanistan and San Francisco, California
Time Period: mid-1960s-2001
Series: N/A
Plot Summary: The Kite Runner is a heartbreaking story about the friendship between two young boys, Amir and Hassan, growing up in Kabul. Although both were raised in the same household, they both come from two different social classes. Amir is the son of a wealthy man and Hassan comes from a servant family. They become inseparable friends and enjoy competing together in kite running tournaments. Until one unfortunate event changes their lives. Their friendship is intertwined with feelings of jealousy and betrayal, and their fates are separated by the tragedies surrounding them.
Subject Headings: Kabul, Afghanistan, Middle East, Islam, Muslims, Russian occupation, Soviet invasion-1978, social classes, coming-of-age stories, boys and friendship, father and son relationships, brothers, family and love, childhood choices, personal salvation, kite flying, tournaments, betrayal, child abuse, male rape, gang rape, bullying, The Seventies, immigrants, American Dream, exile communities, the Taliban, Taliban-ruled, political turmoil, war-torn countries, effects of war, writers/novelists.
Appeal: striking debut novel, passionate writing, fast-paced, page turner, first person narrator, tone of book thought provoking, memoir, autobiographical, war, death, flashbacks, foreshadowing, realistic, well developed characters, plot-centered, sad, eye-opening, sensitive, child abuse, loss, brutal, tragic, torture, scandalous, guilt and regret, intriguing, astonishing, cruelty, violent, graphic, historical details/chronicle, Afghan culture, descriptive (descriptions of San Francisco, California and Kabul, Afghanistan), occasional foreign words/Farsi, heartbreaking struggle, bittersweet, emotional triumph, hopeful.
Similar Authors and Works (Fiction): Masha Hamilton—Staircase of a thousand steps: a novel (Set in the time of the Arab/Israeli war, this is the story of the coming of age of a psychic, gifted young girl who has to walk the line between a world of tradition and a world of change.), Ian McEwan—Atonement (In the summer of 1935, three children lose their innocence and their lives change forever.), Camila Way—The Dead of Summer (Debut novel of a young thirteen year girl who witnesses three murders and seven years later she reveals her experience.)
Similar Authors and Works (Nonfiction): Steve Coll—Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (Research details of the CIA’s involvement during the beginnings of the Taliban and Al Qaeda before September 11.), Rory Stewart–The Places In Between (A journal about a Scottish writer’s traveling experience in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.), Stephen Tanner—Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban (An overview history of Afghanistan’s empire and military building and collapsing.)
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