Sometimes I could not bear the pain of reading through the plot unfolding and thrown the book away. I grab the book after sometime in the hope that the lives of the characters would turn the positive way. And all the time I was relieved what was depicted in the novel is fiction. Had it been real, it would not have been bearable for sure. However at the end of the book, the author in his note informs us about the hardships faced by women in the Taliban Afghanistan. I wept thinking about the fate of them. I could no longer stand the pain of not knowing if the lives of the characters had a happy ending. Half through the book, I turned over to the last chapter, read the happier but devastating end and started on the rest of the book.
A must read for its dizzying power of making our hearts cry “Thousand Splendid Suns” is a novel by Khalid Hosseni who’s earlier novel “The Kite Runner” is also received with lot of acclaim around the world. It is the story of two women Mariam and Laila who share a relationship of a mother and a daughter beyond the actual one they are forced into. It is the story of the contrasting country of Afghanistan before and after the Taliban invasion. It is the story of the sacrifices made by women. It is about the love that never fades away. It is about people acting in extra ordinary ways to overcome obstacles with startling heroism. It is about how International politics devastated a beautiful country.
The acknowledgements section of the novel has info that the title of the novel comes from the English translation of a poem composed seventeenth century Persian poet “Saeb-e-Tabrizi”. It describes Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan that
“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls”.
After all the years of invasion Kabul is no longer what it is described. Laila living away in Pakistan remembers this poem recited to her by her father and when the US forces reclaim Afghanistan and went about setting peace, she vows to go back to the city where she actually belongs and live the life of the dreams of her father and mother. She reveals to Tariq (her husband) about her wish of going back to Afghanistan, he responds back, “I would even go to the end of the world for you”.
This is what the characters in the novel and the readers yearn for, comforting and selfless love.
Do not miss it, if you haven’t read it already.
A must read for its dizzying power of making our hearts cry “Thousand Splendid Suns” is a novel by Khalid Hosseni who’s earlier novel “The Kite Runner” is also received with lot of acclaim around the world. It is the story of two women Mariam and Laila who share a relationship of a mother and a daughter beyond the actual one they are forced into. It is the story of the contrasting country of Afghanistan before and after the Taliban invasion. It is the story of the sacrifices made by women. It is about the love that never fades away. It is about people acting in extra ordinary ways to overcome obstacles with startling heroism. It is about how International politics devastated a beautiful country.
The acknowledgements section of the novel has info that the title of the novel comes from the English translation of a poem composed seventeenth century Persian poet “Saeb-e-Tabrizi”. It describes Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan that
“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls”.
After all the years of invasion Kabul is no longer what it is described. Laila living away in Pakistan remembers this poem recited to her by her father and when the US forces reclaim Afghanistan and went about setting peace, she vows to go back to the city where she actually belongs and live the life of the dreams of her father and mother. She reveals to Tariq (her husband) about her wish of going back to Afghanistan, he responds back, “I would even go to the end of the world for you”.
This is what the characters in the novel and the readers yearn for, comforting and selfless love.
Do not miss it, if you haven’t read it already.
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