Khaled Hosseini

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Khaled Hosseini

خالد حسینی
Born: March 04, 1965 (age 42)
Kabul, Afghanistan
Occupation: novelist, physician
Nationality: Flag of United States United States
Flag of Afghanistan Afghanistan
Genres: fiction
Debut works: The Kite Runner (2003)
Website: khaledhosseini.com

Khaled Hosseini (Persian: خالد حسینی) (born March 4, 1965) is an Afghan–American novelist and physician. He has published one best selling novel, The Kite Runner (2003). His next novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, is due to be released on May 22, 2007.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan to a family of Kizilbash descent. His father was involved with the Afghan Foreign Ministry, and his mother was a teacher at a large girls high school in Kabul. In 1970, the Foreign Ministry sent his family, along with his three siblings, to Paris, France, where his father worked for the Afghan embassy. In 1973, Hosseini's family returned to Kabul, where, in July of that year, Hosseini's youngest brother was born. This was the same time Afghan power changed hands through a bloodless coup.

In 1976, Hosseini's father obtained a job in Paris and moved the family there. They chose not to return to Afghanistan because communists had seized power through a bloody coup. Instead, in 1980 they sought political asylum in the United States and made their residence in San Jose, California. Having left Afghanistan with only the clothes on their back, they were forced to subsist on welfare and food stamps for a brief period.

Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1988. The following year, he entered the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, where he earned his M.D. in 1993. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 1996. He continues to practice medicine.

[edit] Influences

When Hosseini was a child, he read a great deal of Persian poetry as well as Persian translations of novels ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series. Hosseini's memories of peaceful pre-Soviet era Afghanistan, as well as his personal experiences with Afghan Hazaras, led to the writing of his first novel, The Kite Runner. One Hazara man, named Hossein Khan, worked for the Hosseinis when they were living in Iran. When Hosseini was in third grade, he taught Khan to read and write. Though his relationship with Hossein Khan was brief and rather formal, Hosseini's fond memories of this relationship served as an inspiration for the relationship between Hassan and Amir in The Kite Runner.

[edit] Novels

  • The Kite Runner (ISBN 1-59448-000-1) is the story of a young boy, Amir, juggling to establish a closer rapport with his father and coping with memories of a haunting childhood event. The novel is set in Afghanistan, from the fall of the monarchy until the collapse of the Taliban regime, and in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its many themes include ethnic tensions between the Hazara and the Pashtun in Afghanistan, and the immigrant experiences of Amir and his father in the United States. The novel was the number three best seller for 2005 in the United States, according to Nielsen BookScan.[1] The Kite Runner has been adapted into a film of the same name with a release date in November, 2007.

[edit] External links

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Harry Potter tops US best-seller list for 2005. ninemsn.com.au (2006-01-07). Retrieved on 2007-02-14.
  2. ^ Rudin buys rights to 'Suns'. Variety (2007-02-01). Retrieved on 2007-02-14.
Persondata
NAME Hosseini, Khaled
ALTERNATIVE NAMES خالد حسینی (Persian)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Novelist
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Kabul, Afghanistan
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
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