A Thousand Splendid Suns
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A Thousand Splendid Suns, novel by Khaled Hosseini, published in 2007. Through its depiction of the relationship between two women, Mariam and Laila, the novel describes the shifting political and social climate of Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion of 1979 and subsequent war through the Taliban’s spreading control of the country in the 1990s to the U.S. invasion of 2001 and subsequent war. A Thousand Splendid Suns became a bestseller in the United States.
Background, publication, and reception
A Thousand Splendid Suns was Hosseini’s follow-up to his widely popular debut novel, The Kite Runner (2003). Although both novels take a broad historical view, their primary concern is life for ordinary Afghans under Taliban rule, particularly during the first decade of the 21st century, during the Afghanistan War and the broader American-led war on terror. Hosseini, who was born in 1965 and raised in Kabul, sought to bring this subject, filtered through his own experiences, to an English-speaking, specifically American audience. He and his family had received political asylum from the United States government and moved to California in 1980.
Like The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns became a critical and commercial success. In a 2007 review, the New York Times literary critic Michiko Kakutani determined that Hosseini’s “accessible and very old-fashioned storytelling talents” were key to understanding both novels’ popularity. She also noted that while A Thousand Splendid Suns focuses on relationships between women, mothers, and daughters and The Kite Runner describes male friendships and relationships between fathers and sons, both provide emotionally real “glimpses of daily life in Afghanistan—a country known to most Americans only through news accounts of war and terrorism.” The two novels have sold tens of millions of copies around the world.
Plot summary
Born in 1959, Mariam is the daughter of Jalil, a wealthy businessman in Herāt, and his former housekeeper, who is referred to only as Nana throughout the novel. Nana calls Mariam a harami, a term meaning “illegitimate” or “bastard child”; Jalil and Nana never marry. Jalil visits Mariam weekly and builds a kolba, a shack made of mud, for her and Nana to live in. Jalil has three wives and 10 other children; they are a source of resentment for Nana, who is unable to forgive Jalil for making her and Mariam live in a kolba while the rest of his family lives in a mansion.
Mariam’s Qurʾān tutor Mullah Faizullah encourages her appetite for learning—unlike Nana, who worries that if Mariam goes to school she will lose Mariam and be left alone. When Mariam ventures into town on her 15th birthday to locate where Jalil lives with his wives and children, Nana believes that Mariam has abandoned her and hangs herself. Unable to stay with Jalil, Mariam is arranged to be married to Rasheed, a widower from Kabul who is nearly 30 years her senior. Mariam begs Jalil not to marry her off to Rasheed, but to no avail. Betrayed, Mariam tells Jalil she never wants to see him again. Mariam moves to Kabul with Rasheed, where she has a miscarriage. Rasheed’s treatment of Mariam soon deteriorates into abuse, and by the time she is 19, in the 1970s, she has suffered six more miscarriages.
The novel’s point of view shifts to Laila, a young girl growing up in the same neighborhood as Mariam and Rasheed, although Laila does not know the couple. Her best friend is a neighbor boy, Tariq, who is two years older than she is. Laila’s elder brothers have joined the mujahideen to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; their departure has taken a toll on her parents’ marriage. News that they have died devastates the family, especially Laila’s mother.
By 1992 the mujahideen have defeated the communist forces of Mohammad Najibullah and taken control of Kabul. However, infighting between different factions begins to spill out into everyday life, and Laila’s days are filled with the noise of whistling rockets overhead. Laila’s friendship with Tariq starts turning romantic, but, because of his father’s failing health, Tariq’s family decides to leave Afghanistan for Pakistan. Tariq consoles a distraught Laila, and the two have sex. He tells Laila that he wants to marry her and that she should come with him to Pakistan, but Laila refuses to abandon her parents.
Not long after Tariq’s family leaves, Laila’s parents decide that it is time for them to leave Kabul for Pakistan, as well. On the day of their planned departure, a rocket strikes their home and reduces it to rubble. Laila’s parents are killed, but Laila is saved from the destruction by Rasheed and Mariam, who bring her to their home and nurse her back to health.
Rasheed shows care and concern for Laila, and Mariam quickly suspects that he is going to ask Laila to marry him, multiple marriages being permissible for men under the prevailing law. A month after the explosion that killed Laila’s parents, a man named Abdul Sharif visits their home and informs Laila that Tariq’s family was caught in crossfire at the Pakistani border, killing Tariq’s parents and injuring Tariq. He adds, however, that Tariq died from his injuries in a hospital where Abdul Sharif was also a patient. Laila is overcome with grief, and Mariam consoles her. Rasheed proposes marriage to Laila and she accepts his proposal, but she hides the fact that she does so because she is pregnant with Tariq’s child.
Rasheed dotes on Laila, in the belief that she is pregnant with his child, which he is confident is a boy. That causes Mariam to resent Laila. But he is disappointed when Laila gives birth to a daughter named Aziza, and he stops doting on Laila. One night, Rasheed bursts into Mariam’s room and accuses her of encouraging Laila to deny Rasheed sex. Laila stands up for Mariam and prevents Rasheed from hurting her. Mariam and Laila grow closer after this incident, and Laila confesses to Mariam that Aziza is Tariq’s child. The two women make a plan to leave Rasheed and escape Afghanistan for Pakistan. At the bus station, however, a man they had trusted to aid them in their escape turns them over to the authorities. Rasheed beats them both and locks Mariam in a shed and Laila in her bedroom.
The Taliban take control of Kabul in 1996, and Laila becomes pregnant with Rasheed’s child. She debates whether to terminate the pregnancy but decides against it. She gives birth to a son, Zalmai. As the children grow up, Mariam is a second mother to them and grows especially close to Aziza. Then, Afghanistan suffers a drought and Rasheed loses his store to a fire. He makes Mariam call Jalil and ask for money, but, when she calls her father, she is told that Jalil has died. Against her better judgment, Laila agrees to Rasheed’s suggestion that they send Aziza to an orphanage where she will be fed and can attend school.
In the summer of 2001, upon returning home from a visit to the orphanage, Laila is shocked to see Tariq waiting outside her home. Laila realizes the story she had been told by Abdul Sharif was a lie, a plan concocted by Rasheed to persuade Laila to marry him. Tariq now lives in Murree in Pakistan. Zalmai is skeptical of Tariq and, unaware who Tariq is, tells Rasheed that he had been at the house that day. Enraged, Rasheed beats Laila and is in the process of strangling her when Mariam strikes Rasheed over the head with a shovel, killing him and saving Laila.
Knowing the authorities will execute them for murder, Laila quickly decides that they must flee with Tariq back to Pakistan. Mariam refuses to go and instead waits to face her judgment, in turn buying Laila and Tariq time for their escape. Laila tearfully says goodbye before leaving Mariam for good. Mariam is publicly executed at a stadium in Kabul, and in her final moments she asks God for forgiveness.
Laila, Tariq, and the children spend a year in Murree. During that time, in response to the September 11 attacks, the United States invades Afghanistan. Although the war frightens and angers her, Laila is homesick for Kabul. They eventually decide to return to Kabul, but not before making a stop in Herāt. There, Laila finds Mullah Faizullah’s son, Hamza, who takes her to the kolba where Mariam was raised. He gives her a box that Jalil gave to Mullah Faizullah, instructing him to give it to Mariam if she were ever to return to Herāt. In the box is a videotape of Pinocchio, a movie Mariam had begged Jalil to take her to see, along with money that Jalil considered Mariam’s rightful inheritance, and a handwritten letter from Jalil addressed to Mariam. Jalil’s letter describes the regret he felt for having married Mariam to Rasheed and asks her for forgiveness. A Thousand Splendid Suns ends as Laila discusses with Tariq and the children what they should name the baby she is pregnant with if it is a boy, knowing that if it is a girl she will name her Mariam.