A Thousand Splendid Suns

Name of Reviewer – Naireen Naveed Pathan, Third Year B.Sc.B.Ed, Ashoka College of Education, Nashik.
This book of Khaled Hosseini is an encouraging and motivating story of two girls who fight for freedom from a person who is like a disaster for them. This novel was written in 2007.
The book is a compelling but heartbreaking story of two women, both with distinct family background and about a generation apart, who were brought together under the same household through the tragic sweep of war. It is a story set between the period of the 1960s to 2000s in Afghanistan; a period during the invasion by the Soviet Union and the rise of the dreadful Taliban.
There is this girl named Mariam who has grown with her mother who was betrayed by his own father for leaving home to marry a man( Mariam’s father ) who has abused her all her life . And then there’s this girl named Laila who was born in a privileged household which was luxurious .
Mariam’s mother dies by committing suicide and left Mariam alone . On the other hand Mariam’s father Jaleel , already have two wives in his big mansion. With no one left , Mariam was forced to accept a marriage proposal at the age of fourteen from Rasheed who was nearly 20 years older than her .
Mariam’s mother always warned her about this world which will become a scary nightmare for her someday, but despite of listening her mother she left her and ran out of her small hut to meet his father. But Mariam was just a child finding for father’s love because he gave him so much hopes that someday he will take her to his mansion and give her a life which she has imagined in her dreams. But Jaleel not just left her alone with her mother but also made her life disastrous. He never took her with him , but gave her so many hopes that someday will come and he will take her to wander this world and live a peaceful and happy life .
On the other hand , there’s Laila who was born when Mariam was 20. After living childhood with grace and joy , now Laila has entered adulthood and found someone who love her from his heart. Tariq was immensely in love with Laila . But Laila never know that someday he had to leave Tariq and marry the same person who married Mariam.
I don’t wanted to share the glimpse of this story but I know that even if I only share the review about it , you will never get to know about how those women have led their life under the rule of Taliban.
Hosseini is a master storyteller. His characters feel like you know them. You have a sense that you feel what they are feeling and can think what they are thinking. But it is a dark dark book. It is a story that will tear your heart into pieces and then when you are somewhat relieved there is light at the end of the tunnel will break your heart again. A story of domestic abuse that matches anything I have read before. A husband forces small stones into the mouth of his wife over an unpleasant meal leaving her to “spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars’’. The last quote, the author remarked that the grisly if colorful words were used by a bodyguard of a government official when telling him a casual story a woman he has seen beated by a Taliban official in Kabul in 2003.
This book is a story of deep love laced with extreme circumstances and incredible cruelty.