A Thousand Splendid Suns

by Khaled Hosseini

This book is about two strong, brave, talented human beings who are “women” in the Taliban’s
land of Afghanistan and who become indispensable to each other despite everything in their
lives.

Mariam is from Herat in Afghanistan. She is the illegitimate daughter of Jalil (a wealthy
businessman) born to his maid servant. Jalil has 3 lawfully wedded wives and around 9
legitimate children. Mariam and her mother are made to stay far away from the city and Jalil
visits them every Thursday to spend time with his illegitimate daughter. Mariam loves the time
she spends with Jalil and also her old teacher who comes to teach her the Quran. Mariam
wants more of her fathers love (publicly) and her act of going to get it in person costs her literally
everything! Her mother commits suicide and the 14 year old orphaned Mariam is married off by
her rich father to Rasheed who is a shoe maker in Kabul.

Rasheed is a widower who lost his wife and son to an accident. He is abusive, mean, rude,
ignorant and is much older than Mariam. He insists Mariam wear a burqa and not be around
when his male friends visit their home in Kabul. Mariam is not allowed to socialize with their
neighbors or speak to anyone else. Mariam gets pregnant and Rasheed is happy beyond
words. But this happiness is short-lived. Mariam loses the baby and this happens consecutively!
One after the other her pregnancies do not last and Rasheed becomes more and more abusive
and literally an animal.

Now the other woman in the story is Laila. Laila, born 20 years after Mariam, is the only
daughter of her parents and lives on the same street as Mariam and Rasheed. Laila’s two
brothers are away at the war front fighting the communists. Her best friend is their neighbor's
son Tariq who has lost one of his legs due to an accident when he was young. Laila’s father was
a university teacher and he wants his daughter to be educated and working. Tariq and Laila
have a beautiful relationship which evolves into love as these two grow up. Laila’s brothers are
killed in warfare and once the Soviet communists are defeated, petty warlords keep bombing
each other resulting in heavy losses in life and property of civilians. Tariq and his family move to
Pakistan and finally Laila and her family also decide to leave. This day changes course for Laila.
Her parents are killed and her house destroyed. She is saved by Rasheed and taken into their
care. Mariam and Rasheed attend to Laila’s recovery and finally (as expected) Rashed asks
Laila to marry him.

With Taliban ruling the country, Tariq’s child growing inside her and nowhere else the 15 year old
Laila agrees to marry Rasheed. Two generations apart the two women in Rasheed’s life live
their miserable lives inside that house in suffering! Initially Mariam and Laila do not have it all
nice between them but then the beautiful Aziza’s birth changes everything. Mariam and Aziza
are very fond of each other and the three of them get to have some happy moments in life when
Rasheed is away at his shoe shop. Things take another turn when Rashid’s shop has to be
closed, he has no job and no money and food and water is scarce. Laila has a son Zalami and
Rasheed adores his son. Aziza has to be left at the local orphanage as starvation is at its peak.

Evil at its worst includes punches, kicks, slapping, beating and verbal abuse to both these ladies
by Rasheed. To add on to this is the outside world laden with crime, starvation and open killing
of people who violate the laws.

I could not or rather would not say if Mariam or Laila was stronger or wiser than the other but I
cried for both of them. Their levels of tolerance of the pain they suffered both physical and
verbal was humongous. They suffered and they lived. I wanted both outside of that hell and to
have some peace and happiness in their lives.

A Heart-Wrenching read by Khaled Hosseini and my personal favorite of Hosseini!

“Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger
always finds a woman. Always”

Rizvan Ibrahim

2nd Year MA English