'A Thousand Splendid Suns' is a novel written by Khaled Hosseini. The story is that of two Afghani women Marriam and Laila, and how they survived the tough conditions for women, in Afghanistan, during the war period.
While the story is a fiction, the narration of events and happenings in Afghanistan depicted in the story are facts. Hosseini has used this novel to show the world, the struggle of Afghanistan during the 30 year old period involving Soviet invasion, internal conflicts and the regime of Talibans. Through the two lead characters, the author depicts the level of freedom women had during the Taliban period. It is hard to imagine the hardships women had to go through in Kabul and rest of Afghanistan during that period, where women were not allowed to study/ work, walk alone in streets or laugh in public. There were separate hospitals for women and men, and the facilities in women hospitals were far worse and the doctors had to operate in burqa with only their eyes and fingers unclothed.
In spite of hardships and struggle that both Marriam and Laila had to undergo, they never gave-up. While Laila had a good early-life, Marriam's life is a struggle all along. Looking at their lives, we are extremely fortunate to be living in a safe place and we need to draw happiness from small joys in life such as having tea with loved ones or a movie/ holiday trip with family.
Kudos to the author for making a serious story, into an interesting read. He puts the readers in the town, streets and houses of the characters, through vivid description. It is one of those novels that makes you go back to the web, to search about facts/ events mentioned in the novel. The author himself has called-out the fictional parts of the narration at the end of the book.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel.
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