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I Found Myself Sitting At The Computer, And I Thought I Was Going To Write A Kind Of Simple Nostalgic Story About Two Boys And Their Love Of Kite Fighting. But Stories Have A Will Of Their Own, And This One Turned Out To Be This Dark Tale About Betrayal, Loss, Regret. The Short Story Which Was About 25 Pages Long Sat Around For A Couple Of Years.

-Khaled Hosseini

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I Found Myself Sitting

Khaled Hosseini

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I Found Myself Sitting At The Computer, And I Thought I Was Going To Write A Kind Of Simple Nostalgic Story About Two Boys And Their Love Of Kite Fighting. But Stories Have A Will Of Their Own, And This One Turned Out To Be This Dark Tale About Betrayal, Loss, Regret. The Short Story Which Was About 25 Pages Long Sat Around For A Couple Of Years.

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There [in Afghanistan ] Is A Tremendous Need For Selter. So I Am Focusing Most Of The Efforts Of The Foundation To Building Shelters For Refugees In Northern Afghanistan And We Have Already Begun Doing So.

What Was I Supposed To Be, Growing In Your Womb -- Assuming It Was Even In Our Womb That I Was Conceived? A Seed Of Hope? A Ticket Purchased To Ferry You From The Dark? A Patch For That Hole You Carried In Your Heart? If So, Then I Wasn't Enough. I Wasn't Nearly Enough. I Was No Balm To Your Pain, Only Another Dead End, Another Burden, And You Must Have Seen That Early On. You Must Have Realized It. But What Could You Do? You Couldn't Go Down To The Pawnshop And Sell Me.

Those Who Saw Kite Runner Loved The Film, For The Most Part, People Seemed To Really Like The Film.

Some Stories Don't Need Telling

The Ordinary, Utterly Mundane Reason Behind The Massacre Makes It Somehow More Terrible, And Far More Depressing. The Word 'senseless' Springs To Mind, And Idris Thwarts It. It's What People Always Say. A Senseless Act Of Violence. A Senseless Murder. As If You Could Commit Sensible Murder.

There Is Only One Sin. And That Is Theft... When You Tell A Lie, You Steal Someones Right To The Truth.

The Kite Runner Is A Story Of Two Boys And A Father, And The Strange Love Triangle That Binds Them.

Then I Think Of All The Tricks, All The Minutes All The Hours And Days And Weeks And Months And Years Waiting For Me. All Of It Without Them. And I Can't Breathe Then, Like Someone's Stepping On My Heart, Laila. So Weak I Just Want To Collapse Somewhere.

But It Is Important To Know This, To Know Your Roots. To Know Where You Started As A Person. If Not, Your Own Life Seems Unreal To You. Like A Puzzle. Vous Comprenez? Like You Have Missed The Beginning Of A Story And Now You Are In The Middle Of It, Trying To Understand.

By Then The Kite Runner Had Become Quite Successful And I Found Myself In A Position That I Had Always Dreamed Of My Whole Life, Which Was To Write For A Living.

There Was So Much Goodness In My Life. So Much Happiness. I Wondered Whether I Deserved Any Of It.

You See, Some Things I Can Teach You. Some You Learn From Books. But There Are Things That, Well, You Have To See And Feel.

But The Game Involves Only Male Names. Because, If It's A Girl, Laila Has Already Named Her

Dr. Bashiri, If I Ever Want To Put A Curse In Someone, I Say, 'may God Give You A Restaurant.

I Will Say That There Is An Inordinate Amount Of Medicine In My Novels, Especially The First One. There Are A Lot Of Medical Things That Happen. A Hip Fracture, Three Different Kinds Of Lung Cancer, Pneumonia, Blood Poisoning, And So On.

I Found A Sad Little Fairy Beneath The Shade Of A Paper Tree. I Know A Sad Little Fairy Who Was Blown Away By The Wind One Night.

Though There Had Been Moments Of Beauty In It, Mariam Knew That Life For Most Part Has Been Unkind To Her. But As She Walked The Final Twenty Paces, She Could Not Help But Wish For More Of It.

The Taliban's Acts Of Cultural Vandalism - The Most Infamous Being The Destruction Of The Giant Bamiyan Buddhas - Had A Devastating Effect On Afghan Culture And The Artistic Scene. The Taliban Burned Countless Films, Vcrs, Music Tapes, Books, And Paintings. They Jailed Filmmakers, Musicians, Painters, And Sculptors.

The Country [afghanistan] Faces Enormous Problems. There Is A Violent Insurgency Hampering The Rule Of Law And Developmental Efforts.

Literary Fiction Is Kept Alive By Women. Women Read More Fiction, Period.

The Short Of It Is, As An Aspiring Writer, There Is Nothing As Damaging To Your Credibility As Saying That You Don't Like To Read.

Aspiring Writers

True Redemption Is...when Guilt Leads To Good.

President Karzai Is An Incredibly Kind And Decent Man. I Had The Pleasure Of Meeting Him, And He Genuinely Cares For His People. But I Think He Had Too Much Of A Tendency To Want To Rule By Listening To All Voices At All Times.

In Early 1999, I Was Watching Tv, When I Came Across A Story On Afghanistan. It Was A Story About The Taliban And The Restrictions They Were Imposing On The Afghan People, Most Notably Women. At Some Point In The Story, There Was A Casual Reference To Them Having Banned The Game Of Kite Fighting. This Detail Struck A Personal Chord With Me, As I Had Grown Up In Kabul Flying Kite With My Friends.

She Said, 'i'm So Afraid.' And I Said, 'why?,' And She Said, 'because I'm So Profoundly Happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness Like This Is Frightening.' I Asked Her Why And She Said, 'they Only Let You Be This Happy If They're Preparing To Take Something From You.

Mariam Lay On The Couch, Hands Tucked Between Her Knees, Watched The Whirlpool Of Snow Twisting And Spinning Outside The Window. She Remembered Nana Saying Once That Each Snowflake Was A Sigh Heaved By An Aggrieved Woman Somewhere In The World. That All The Sighs Drifted Up The Sky, Gathered Into Clouds, Then Broke Into Tiny Pieces That Fell Silently On The People Below. As A Reminder Of How People Like Us Suffer, She'd Said. How Quietly We Endure All That Falls Upon Us.

I'm Sorry," Laila Says, Marveling At How Every Afghan Story Is Marked By Death And Loss And Unimaginable Grief. And Yet, She Sees, People Find A Way To Survive, To Go On.

I Remember Reading 'the Grapes Of Wrath' In High School In 1983. My Family Had Immigrated To The U.s. Three Years Before, And I Had Spent The Better Part Of The First Two Years Learning English. John Steinbeck's Book Was The First Book I Read In English Where I Had An 'aha!' Moment, Namely In The Famed Turtle Chapter.

Life Just Doesn't Care About Our Aspirations, Or Sadness. It's Often Random, And It's Often Stupid And It's Often Completely Unexpected, And The Closures And The Epiphanies And Revelations We End Up Receiving From Life, Begrudgingly, Rarely Turn Out To Be The Ones We Thought.

Hassan And I Looked At Each Other. Cracked Up. The Hindi Kid Would Soon Learn What The British Learned Earlier In The Century, And What The Russians Would Eventually Learn By The Late 1980's: That Afghans Are An Independent People. Afghans Cherish Customs But Abhor Rules. And So It Was With Kite Fighting. The Rules Were Simple: No Rules. Fly Your Kite. Cut The Opponents. Good Luck.

I Have A Particular Disdain For Islamic Extremism, And Of Course, In Both 'the Kite Runner' And 'a Thousand Splendid Suns' That's Obvious.

Even After The Kite Runner Was Published I Continued To Practice For Another Eighteen Months. But I Had Always Had A Love Of Writing And A Compulsion To Do It.

Children Aren't Coloring Books. You Don't Get To Fill Them With Your Favorite Colors.

Regret... When It Comes To You, I Have Oceans Of It.

Now, No Matter What The Mullah Teaches, There Is Only One Sin, Only One. And That Is Theft. Every Other Sin Is A Variation Of Theft.

In The Coming Days And Weeks, Laila Would Scramble Frantically To Commit It All To Memory, What Happened Next. Like An Art Lover Running Out Of A Burning Museum, She Would Grab Whatever She Could--a Look, A Whisper, A Moan--to Salvage From Perishing To Preserve. But Time Is The Most Unforgiving Of Fires, And She Couldn't, In The End, Save It All.

She Would Never Leave Her Mark On Mammy's Heart The Way Her Brothers Had, Because Mammy's Heart Was Like A Pallid Beach Where Laila's Footprints Would Forever Wash Away Beneath The Waves Of Sorrow That Swelled And Crashed, Swelled And Crashed.

If There Was A God, He'd Guide The Winds, Let Them Blow For Me So That, With A Tug Of My String, I'd Cut Loose My Pain, My Longing.

It Was Only A Smile, Nothing More. It Didn't Make Everything All Right. It Didn't Make Anything All Right. Only A Smile. A Tiny Thing. A Leaf In The Woods, Shaking In The Wake Of A Startled Bird's Flight. But I'll Take It. With Open Arms. Because When Spring Comes, It Melts The Snow One Flake At A Time, And Maybe I Just Witnessed The First Flake Melting. - Amir

People Find Meaning And Redemption In The Most Unusual Human Connections.

Human Connection

A Story Is Like A Moving Train: No Matter Where You Hop Onboard, You Are Bound To Reach Your Destination Sooner Or Later.

Usually In Films, When Muslims Pray, It's Either Before Or After They've Blown Something Up.

I Don't Listen To Music When I Write - I Find It Distracting.

Listening To Music

I Started A Foundation, Called The Khaled Hosseini Foundation. The Mission Has Been To Help The Most Vulnerable Groups In Afghanistan. So The Focus Has Been On Women, Children, And Homeless Refugees, Most Of Whom Are In Fact Women And Children.

Laila Remembered Mammy Telling Babi Once That She Had Married A Man Who Had No Convictions. Mammy Didn't Understand. She Didn't Understand That If She Looked Into A Mirror, She Would Find The One Unfailing Conviction Of His Life Looking Right Back At Her.

They Tell Me I Must Wade Into Waters, Where I Will Soon Drown. Before I March In, I Leave This On The Shore For You. I Pray You Find It, Sister, So You Will Know What Was In My Heart As I Went Under.

You Say Their Stories, It Is Gift They Give You.

But If You Have A Book That Needs Urgent Reading,' She Said, 'then Hakim Is Your Man.

Nothing Wrong With Cowardice As Long As It Comes With Prudence. But When A Coward Stops Remembering Who He Is... God Help Him.

At The Door , She Made Him Promise To Go Without Goodbyes .she Closed The Door On Him . Laila Leaned Her Back Against It , Shaking Against His Pounding Fists , One Arm Gripping Her Belly And A Hand Across Her Mouth , As He Spoke Throughout The Door And Promised That He Would Come Back For Her . She Stood There Until He Tired , Until He Gave Up , And Then She Listened To His Uneven Footsteps Until They Faded , Until All Was Quiet , Save For The Gunfire Cracking In The Hills And Her Own Heart Thudding In Her Belly , Her Eyes , Her Bones .

I've Read That If An Avalanche Buries You And You're Lying There Underneath All That Snow, You Can't Tell Which Way Is Up Or Down. You Want To Dig Yourself Out But Pick The Wrong Way, And You Dig Yourself To Your Own Demise.

I Have Been Involved With The Un Refugee Agency For A Few Years Now, And We Have Done Events To Speak About Refugees, Focusing More And More On The Situation With Afghan Refugees.

America Was Different. America Was A River, Roarng Along, Unmindful Of The Past. I Could Wade Into This River, Let My Sins Drown To The Bottom, Let The Waters Carry Me Someplace Far. Someplace With No Ghosts, No Memories, And No Sins.

If There's A God Out There, Then I Would Hope He Has More Important Things To Attend To Than My Drinking Scotch Or Eating Pork.

What Good Is Regret? It Brings Back Nothing. What We Have Lost Is Irretrievable.

Your Job Today Is To Pass Gas. You Do That And We Can Start Feeding You Liquids. No Fart, No Food.

There [in The Kite Runner] Certainly Are, As Is Always The Case With Fiction, Autobiographical Elements Woven Through The Narrative.

It Was You Nabi. It Was Always You. Didn't You Know?

Sometimes The Shifting Of Rocks Is Deep, Deep Below, And It's Powerful And Scary Down There, But That All We Feel On The Surface Is A Slight Tremor. Only A Slight Tremor.

After Everything He'd Built, Planned, Fought For, Fretted Over, Dreamed Of, This Was The Summation Of His Life; One Disappointing Son And Two Suitcases.

Don't Be Afraid To Tell The Truth. It's Better To Hurt Someone By Truth Than To Make Them Happy By Lies.

Telling The Truth

I Think That To Fully Appreciate Baseball, It Helps To Have Been Born In The U.s.

In Afghan Society, Parents Play A Central Role In The Lives Of Their Children; The Parent-child Relationship Is Fundamental To Who You Are And What You Become And How You Perceive Yourself, And It Is Laden With Contradictions, With Tension, With Anger, With Love, With Loathing, With Angst.

J’aurais Dû être Plus Gentille—i Should Have Been More Kind. That Is Something A Person Will Never Regret. You Will Never Say To Yourself When You Are Old, Ah, I Wish I Was Not Good To That Person. You Will Never Think That.

We Will Also Be Funding Projects That Empower Women And Children In Afghanistan And Now And Then Give Scholarships To Afghan Students Here In The Bay Area.

My Own Background Is Fairly Liberal And So This Notion Of 'protecting Women From Outside Intrusion' Is Not In My Nature, Nor In My Upbringing.

I Think The Emancipation Of Women In Afghanistan Has To Come From Inside, Through Afghans Themselves, Gradually, Over Time.

I Think He Loved Us Equally, But Differently.

Inside Laila Too A Battle Was Being Waged : Guilt On One Side, Partnered With Shame, And, On The Other, The Conviction That What She And Tariq Had Done Was Not Sinful; That It Had Been Natural, Good, Beautiful, Even Inevitable, Spurred By The Knowledge That They Might Never See Each Other Again.

And Suddenly, Just Like That, Hope Became Knowledge. I Was Going To Win. It Was Just A Matter Of When.

In March Of 2001, I Revisited The Short Story, And Found That Thought It Did Not Work Well As A Short Story, It Might Work Much Better As A Longer One. The Novel [the Kite Runner] Came About As An Expansion Of That Original, Unpublished Short Story.

My Family Left Afghanistan In 1976, Well Before The Communist Coup And The Soviet Invasion. We Certainly Thought We Would Be Going Back. But When We Saw Those Soviet Tanks Rolling Into Afghanistan, The Prospect For Return Looked Very Dim. Few Of Us, I Have To Say, Envisioned That Nearly A Quarter Century Of Bloodletting Would Follow.

Attention Shifted To Him Like Sunflowers Turning To The Sun.

Kabul Is... A Thousand Tragedies Per Square Mile.

The Images [of The Kite Runner Grafic] Were Created In Fabio Celoni's Mind. I Chose To Let Him Take The Lead. Fabio And I Did Exchange An E-mail Or Two, But It Was My Intention To Step Out Of The Way And Let His Artistic Instincts Take Over.

Soon, He Would Become An Adult. And When He Did, There Would Be Not Going Back Because Adulthood Was Akin To What His Father Had Once Said About Being A War Hero: One You Became One, You Died One.

Though There Were Moments Of Beauty, Mariam Knew For The Most Part That Life Had Been Unkind To Her.

Years Later, I Learned An English Word For The Creature That Assef Was, A Word For Which A Good Farsi Equivalent Does Not Exist: Sociopath.

[barack Obama] Is Sending More Troops [to Afghanistan], But They Have Also Realized That We Are Not Going To Win That War Through Guns And Tanks. We Have To Engage The Neighbors, And It Is Good That There Is A Non-military Strategy In Addition To A Military Strategy. It Is, At Least, Encouraging. Whether It Will Work Or Not, The Jury Is Still Put.

I Finally Had What I'd Wantes All Those Years. Except Now That I Had It, I Felt As Empty As This Unkempt Pool I Was Dangling My Legs Into.

I Have Lived A Long Time, And One Thing I Have Come To See Is That One Is Well Served By A Degree Of Both Humility And Charity When Judging The Inner Workings Of Another Person's Heart

I Think The Scale Of The Conflict [in Afghanistan] Has Dramatically Changed In 2003. You're Now Facing A Much More Motivated, Well-supported Enemy. I Don't See Any Quick End To This Thing.

You Say You Have No Courage, But I See It In You. What You Did, The Burden You Agreed To Shoulder, Took Courage. For That, I Honor You.

I Don't Know Whom Or What He Was Defying. [...] [m]aybe The God He Had Never Believed In.

I Wished I Could Be Alone In My Room, With My Books, Away From These People.

Of All The Hardships A Person Had To Face, None Was More Punishing Than The Simple Act Of Waiting.

Probably The Single Most Commen Response I Get From My Readesr, Be It Through E-mails Or Letters, Is That They Did Not Know Much, Or At Times, They're Quite Frank, They Didn't Care Much About Afghanistan. But They Pay Attention More After Reading These Novels, And At Times It Has Triggered This Humaitarian Spirt: Some Have Donated Money Or At Time Times, People Have Joined Humatiarian Organizations That Work In Afghanistan.

For Courage, There Must Be Something At Stake. I Come Here With Nothing To Lose.

Nothing To Lose

For A Novelist, It's Kind Of An Onerous Burden To Represent An Entire Culture.

These Random Unkind Moment That Catch You Wen You Least Expect Them.

The Things That Have Always Drawn Me To The Craft Of Writing Is Character, It's Story, It's Something That Becomes Like A Pebble In My Shoe, A Voice That I Just Can't Get Rid Of, And I've Got To See It Through.

A Boy Who Won't Stand Up For Himself Becomes A Man Who Can't Stand Up To Anything.

Sometimes, Soraya Sleeping Next To Me, I Lay In Bed And Listened To The Screen Door Swinging Open And Shut With The Breeze, To The Crickets Chirping In The Yard. And I Could Almost Feel The Emptiness In Soraya's Womb, Like It Was A Living, Breathing Thing. It Had Seeped Into Our Marriage, That Emptiness, Into Our Laughs, And Our Love-making. And Late At Night, In The Darkness Of Our Room, I'd Feel It Rising From Soraya And Setting Between Us. Sleeping Between Us. Like A Newborn Child.

I Didn't Remember What Month That Was, Or What Year Even. I Only Knew The Memory Lived In Me, A Perfectly Encapsulated Morsel Of A Good Past, A Brushstroke Of Color On The Gray, Barren Canvas That Our Lives Had Become.

I Thought About You All The Time. I Used To Pray That You’d Live To Be A Hundred Years Old. I Didn’t Know. I Didn’t Know That You Were Ashamed Of Me.

I Brought Hassan’s Son From Afghanistan To America, Lifting Him From The Certainty Of Turmoil And Dropping Him In A Turmoil Of Uncertainty

I’m All You Have In This World Mariam, And When I’m Gone You’ll Have Nothing. You Are Nothing!

I Have Been A Fan Of Comic Books Since Childhood.

You Don't Order Someone To Polish Your Shoes One Day And Call Them 'sister' The Next.

It Turned Out That, Like Satan, Cancer Had Many Names.

If Culture Was A House, Then Language Was The Key To The Front Door, [and] To All Rooms Inside.

I Wanted To Write About Afghanistan Before The Soviet War Because That Is Largely A Forgotten Period In Modern Afghan History.

It's Tremendous What Can Happen When Suddenly You Make An Emotional Connection.

Emotional Connection

When You Have Lived As Long As I Have, The Div Replied, You Find That Cruelty And Benevolence Are But Shades Of The Same Color.

You Can Not Stop You From Being Who You Are.

And That, ...is The Story Of Our Country, One Invasion After Another...macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now The Soviets. But We're Like Those Walls Up There. Battered, And Nothing Pretty To Look At, But Still Standing.

Yes, Hope Is A Strange Thing. Peace At Last. But At What Price?

Give Sustenance, Allah. Give Sustenance To Me.

I Want To Tear Myself From This Place, From This Reality, Rise Up Like A Cloud And Float Away, Melt Into This Humid Summer Night And Dissolve Somewhere Far, Over The Hills. But I Am Here, My Legs Blocks Of Concrete, My Lungs Empty Of Air, My Throat Burning. There Will Be No Floating Away.

I Have This Almost Pathological Fear Of Boring The Reader.

It Is Now Your Duty To Hone That Talent, Because A Person Who Wastes His God-given Talents Is A Donkey.

A Part Of Me Was Hoping Someone Would Wake Up And Hear, So I Wouldn't Have To Live With This Lie Anymore. But No One Woke Up And In The Silence That Followed, I Understood The Nature Of My New Curse: I Was Going To Get Away With It.

Quiet Is Turning Down The Volume Knob On Life.

Kabul Was Very Popular With The Hippies In The Sixties And Seventies. It Was Very Quiet And Peaceful.

My Father And I Did Work For A While At The Flea Market And There Really Are Rows Of Afghans Working There, Some Of Whom I Am Related To.

He Said That If Culture Is A House, Then Language Was The Key To The Front Door; To All The Rooms Inside. Without It, He Said, You Ended Up Wayward, Without A Proper Home Or A Legitimate Identity.

I Was Overwhelmed With The Kindness Of People [in Afghanistan] And Found That They Had Managed To Retain Their Dignity, Their Pride, And Their Hospitality Under Unspeakably Bleak Conditions.

People Talk About Apathy, Especially In Developed Countries. We're Kind Of Lulled Into These Tranquil Lives, And We Are Pursuing Our Own Thing And There Is So Much Suffering On A Mass Scale Around The World That You Kind Of Become Fatalistic. You Might Think Suffering Is Inevitable, You Kind Of Lose Your Sense Of Moral Urgency. But There Is Always Something You Can Do For Someone In The World.

At That Moment, She Cannot Think Of A More Reckless, Irrational Thing Than Choosing To Become A Parent.

Yet Love Can Move People To Act In Unexpected Ways And Move Them To Overcome The Most Daunting Obstacles With Startling Heroism

At Last, She Makes Her Choice. She Turns Around, Drops Her Head, And Walks Toward A Horizon She Cannot See. After That, She Does Not Look Back Anymore. She Knows That If She Does, She Will Weaken.

I'm Gladly Doing My Own Thing For The Time Being.

Reading Is An Active, Imaginative Act; It Takes Work.

Zindagi Migzara (life Goes On)

I Returned To Afghanistan Because I Had A Deep Longing To See For Myself How People Lived, What They Thought Of Their Government, How Optimistic They Were About The Future Of Their Homeland.

But Time, It Is Like Charm. You Never Have As Much As You Think.

I Want To Give Up My Bearings, Slip Out Of Who I Am, Shed Everything, The Way A Snake Discards Old Skin.

It's Hard When You Make A Film From A Book That So Many People Love, Because There's No Way To Get The Entire Story Into A Two-hour Movie. But I Was Pleased With The Reaction [for Kite Runner].

And Every Day I Thank [god] That I Am Alive, Not Because I Fear Death, But Because My Wife Has A Husband And My Son Is Not An Orphan.

I Will Follow You To The Ends Of The World.

The Bulk Of Our Efforts [in The Khaled Hosseini Foundation] Has Focused On Helping Build Permanent Shelters For Returning Refugees Who Are Homeless, Living Out In The Open Or In Makeshift Homes. This Is An Area Of Urgent Need As Afghanistan's Natural Elements Are Quite Harsh, With Very Hot Summers, And Freezing Winters.

Fabio Celon Did Send Me Pages As He Progressed, Both In Black And White And Some Color Samples As Well. It Was Really Exciting To See The Sketches And To See The Story [the Kite Runner] Shaping Up Visually.

Black And White

I Ran. A Grown Man Running With A Swarm Of Screaming Children. But I Didn't Care. I Ran With The Wind Blowing In My Face, And A Smile As Wide As The Valley Of Panjsher On My Lip. I Ran

It May Be Unfair, But What Happens In A Few Days, Sometimes Even A Single Day, Can Change The Course Of A Whole Lifetime.

I Think The Changes That Have Happened, There Have Been Come Positive, But By And Large, You Have To Say The Changes Have Been Negative. The Situation Has Reached A Fairly Critical Stage In Afghanistan.

Literature And Film Have A Way Of Lifting You From Your Own Existence And Transporting You To Some Foreign Place And Putting You In The Shoes With An Experience Different Than Your Own.

I'm A Pretty Uncomplicated Person. I Live A Very Simple Life With My Family And I Enjoy Very Ordinary Things.

One Could Not Count The Moons That Shimmer On Her Roofs, Or The Thousand Splendid Suns That Hide Behind Her Walls.

In Many Parts Of The World, A Man's Accusing Finger Always Finds A Woman. But I Think We Need Women To Solve The Problems That Men Create.

If You Were The Poor, Suffering Was Your Currency.

Equally Important Is The Lack Of Cultivable Land For Farmers, A Profound Problem When You Take Into Account That Afghanistan Has Always Largely Been An Agricultural Country, And That Even Before The Wars Destroyed Lands And Irrigation Canals, Only 5 Per Cent Of The Land Was Cultivable.

I Wanted To Tell Them That, In Kabul, We Snapped A Tree Branch And Used It As A Credit Card. Hassan And I Would Take The Wooden Stick To The Bread Maker. He'd Carve Notches On Our Stick With His Knife, One Notch For Each Loaf Of Naan He'd Pull For Us From The Tandoor's Roaring Flames. At The End Of The Month, My Father Paid Him For The Number Of Notches On The Stick. That Was It. No Questions. No Id.

I Came From An Educated, Upper Middle-class Family. My Mother Was A Persian And History Teacher At A Large High School For Girls. Many Of The Women In My Extended Family And In Our Circle Of Friends Were Professionals. In Those Days, Women Were A Vital Part Of The Economy In Kabul. They Worked As Lawyers, Physicians, College Professors, Etc., Which Makes The Tragedy Of How They Were Treated By The Taliban That Much More Painful.

People…shouldn’t Be Allowed To Have New Children If They’d Already Given Away All Their Love To Their Old Ones. It Wasn’t Fair.

I Get Daily E-mails From Afghans Who Thank Me For Writing This Book [the Kite Runner], As They Feel A Slice Of Their Story Has Been Told By One Of Their Own. So, For The Most Part, I Have Been Overwhelmed With The Kindness Of My Fellow Afghans.

You Have Think Tanks Like The Widely Respected Atlantic Council That Have Published Reports In The Past Year That Have Called Afghanistan A Failing State.

It Was The Kind Of Love That, Sooner Or Later, Cornered You Into A Choice: Either You Tore Free Or You Stayed And Withstood Its Rigor Even As It Squeezed You Into Something Smaller Than Yourself.

If You Connect Emotionally With The Plight Of Those Characters, Ou Feel What They Feel And You Walk Away With A Sense Of Understanding And Empathy, And Hopefully, Something Has Been Illuminated For You. And I Tink That's What Happendd For A Lot Of Readers With My Novels.

I Entered The Literary World, Really, From Outside. My Entire Background Has Been In Sciences; I Was A Biology Major In College, Then Went To Medical School. I've Never Had Any Formal Training In Writing. So What I Know About Writing, I Know From My Own Instincts, And Whatever The Narrative Voice Is In My Own Head.

Creating Means Vandalizing The Lives Of Other People, Turning Them Into Unwilling And Unwitting Participants. You Steal Their Desires, Their Dreams, Pocket Their Flaws, Their Suffering. You Take What Does Not Belong To You. You Do This Knowingly.

When I Was In Afghanistan In 2007, I Went From Village To Village Where Refugees Had Returned, And They Were Living Out In The Open Under Tents, Sometimes Completely Exposed To The Environment. And They Were Homeless, Which Meant They Would Lose Children In The Winter To The Cold And In The Summers In The Extreme Heat. It's Extremely Humiliating For Them To Be Homeless, Culturally It's Very Shameful.

And One More Thing...you Will Never Again Refer To Him As 'hazara Boy' In My Presence. He Has A Name And It's Sohrab.

In Afghanistan, You Don't Understand Yourself Solely As An Individual. You Understand Yourself As A Son, A Brother, A Cousin To Somebody, An Uncle To Somebody. You Are Part Of Something Bigger Than Yourself.

I Became What I Am Today At The Age Of Twelve, On A Frigid Overcast Day In The Winter Of 1975. I Remember The Precise Moment, Crouching Behind A Crumbling Mud Wall, Peeking Into The Alley Near The Frozen Creek. That Was A Long Time Ago, But It’s Wrong What They Say About The Past, I’ve Learned, About How You Can Bury It. Because The Past Claws Its Way Out. Looking Back Now, I Realize I Have Been Peeking Into That Deserted Alley For The Last Twenty-six Years.

He Knew I'd Seen Everything In That Alley, That I'd Stood There And Done Nothing. He Knew That I'd Betrayed Him And Yet He Was Rescuing Me Once Again, Maybe For The Last Time.

There Is A God, There Always Has Been. I See Him Here, In The Eyes Of The People In This [hospital] Corridor Of Desperation. This Is The Real House Of God, This Is Where Those Who Have Lost God Will Find Him... There Is A God, There Has To Be, And Now I Will Pray, I Will Pray That He Will Forgive That I Have Neglected Him All Of These Years, Forgive That I Have Betrayed, Lied, And Sinned With Impunity Only To Turn To Him Now In My Hour Of Need. I Pray That He Is As Merciful, Benevolent, And Gracious As His Book Says He Is.

I Loved Him In That Moment, Loved Him More Than I'd Ever Loved Anyone, And I Wanted To To Tell Them All That I Was The Snake In The Grass, The Monster In The Lake. I Wasn't Worthy Of This Sacrifice; I Was A Liar, A Cheat, A Thief. And I Would Have Told, Except That A Part Of Me Was Glad. Glad That This Would All Be Over With Soon. Baba Would Dismiss Them, There Would Be Some Pain, But Life Would Move On. I Wanted That, To Move On, To Forget, To Start With A Clean Slate. I Wanted To Be Able To Breathe Again.

Beauty Is An Enormous, Unmerited Gift Given Randomly, Stupidly.

Joseph Shall Return To Canaan, Grieve Not, Hovels Shall Turn To Rose Gardens, Grieve Not. If A Flood Should Arrive, To Drown All That's Alive, Noah Is Your Guide In The Typhoon's Eye, Grieve Not.

The Truth Is That No One Who Hasn't Actually Experienced The Senseless Chaos And Violence Of Combat Can Possibly Understand It, But Those Who Have And Who Try To Explain It To The Rest Of Us Are Offering Us A Precious Gift: A Part Of Their Soul That's Been Scorched In The Flames Of Hell. It's A Little Like Trying To Describe Music To The Deaf Or Color To The Blind ... To Make The Irrational Somewhat Sensible, Which Is Always Confusing And Frustrating, And Ultimately Futile.

But Then It Passed, As All Things Do.

Kabul Was A Thriving Cosmopolitan City With Its Vibrant Artistic, Intellectual And Cultural Life. There Were Poets, Musicians, And Writers. There Was Also An Influx Of Western Culture, Art, And Literature In The '60s And '70s.

It's Wrong What They Say About The Past, I've Learned, About How You Can Bury It. Because The Past Claws Its Way Out.

All Stories I Write Are Compulsive. Anything I’ve Ever Written Was Because I Don’t Have A Choice. I Write Stories Because I Can’t Wait To Tell It, I Can’t Wait To See How It Ends.

Life Goes On, Unmindful Of Beginning, End…crisis Or Catharsis, Moving Forward Like A Slow, Dusty Caravan Of Kochis (nomads).

The Problem, Of Course, Was That [he] Saw The World In Black And White. And He Got To Decide What Was Black And What Was White. You Can't Love A Person Who Lives That Way Without Fearing Him Too. Maybe Even Hating Him A Little.

Black And White

All My Life, I'd Been Around Men. That Night, I Discovered The Tenderness Of A Woman.

Marriage Can Wait, Education Cannot.

After All, Life Is Not A Hindi Movie.

It Always Hurts More To Have And Lose Than To Not Have In The First Place.

The Story Of What Has Happened To Women In Afghanistan, However, Is A Very Important One, And Fertile Ground For Fiction.

Whether You Do Something Or Decide To Do Nothing, Either Way, You Are Making A Moral Choice. And I Hope People Make The Right One.

I Have A Theory About Marriage, Monsieur Boustouler. And It’s That Nearly Always You Will Know Within Two Weeks If It’s Going To Work. It’s Astonishing How Many People Remain Shackled For Years, Decades Even, In A Protracted And Mutual State Of Self-delusion And False Hope When In Fact They Had Their Answer In Those First Two Weeks.

I May Not Agree With All Or Even Most Of The Tribal Traditions, But It Seems Ti Me That, Out There, People Live More Authentic Lives. They Have A Sturdiness About Them. A Refreshing Humility. Hospitality Too. And Resilience. A Sense Of Pride.

And Yet She Was Leaving The World As A Woman Who Had Love And Been Loved Back. She Was Leaving It As A Friend, A Companion, A Guardian. A Mother. A Person Of Consequence At Last.

As Far As I Know, He Never Asked Where She Had Been Or Why She Had Left And She Never Told. I Guess Some Stories Do Not Need Telling.

Nothing Happens In A Vacuum In Life: Every Action Has A Series Of Consequences, And Sometimes It Takes A Long Time To Fully Understand The Consequences Of Our Actions.

I Guess Some Stories Do Not Need Telling.

But Laila Has Decided That She Will Not Be Crippled By Resentment. Mariam Wouldn’t Want It That Way. ‘what’s The Sense?’ She Would Say With A Smile Both Innocent And Wise. ‘what Good Is It, Laila Jo?’ And So Laila Has Resigned Herself To Moving On. For Her Own Sake, For Tariq’s, For Her Children’s. And For Mariam, Who Still Visits Laila In Her Dreams, Who Is Never More Than A Breath Or Two Below Her Consciousness. Laila Has Moved On. Because In The End She Knows That’s All She Can Do. That And Hope.

Time Can Be A Greedy Thing-sometimes It Steals The Details For Itself.

Michael Bealmear Is A Philanthropist, And He Has Become Interested In The Issue Of Refugees, And He Proposed That We Do An Event In His Community, Where We Could Dedicate An Entire Evening Focused On The Global Refugee Crisis, Focused Primarily On Afghanistan.

I Found Myself Sitting At The Computer, And I Thought I Was Going To Write A Kind Of Simple Nostalgic Story About Two Boys And Their Love Of Kite Fighting. But Stories Have A Will Of Their Own, And This One Turned Out To Be This Dark Tale About Betrayal, Loss, Regret. The Short Story Which Was About 25 Pages Long Sat Around For A Couple Of Years.

Though The Kite Runner Was My First Completed Novel, I Had Been Writing On And Off For Most Of My Life, Primarily Short Stories, And Primarily For Myself.

I Returned To Kabul After A 27-year Absence. I Came Away With Some Optimism But Not As Much As I Had Hoped For. The Two Major Issues In Afghanistan Are A Lack Of Security Outside Kabul (particularly In The South And East) And The Powerful Warlords Ruling Over The Provinces With Little Or No Allegiance To The Central Government. The Other Rapidly Rising Concern Is The Narcotic Trade Which, If Not Dealt With, May Turn Afghanistan Into Another Bolivia Or Colombia.

People In The Countryside Carry A Sense Of Dignity. They Wear It, Don't They? Like A Badge? I'm Being Genuine.

Her Beauty Was The Talk Of The Valley.it Skipped Two Generations Of Women In Our Family, But It Sure Didn't Bypass You, Laila.

A Man Who Has No Conscience, No Goodness, Does Not Suffer.

Gone. Vanished. Nothing Left. Nothing Said.

People Say That Eyes Are Windows To The Soul.

Window To The Soul

Not A Word Passes Between Us, Not Because We Have Nothing To Say, But Because We Don't Have To Say Anything

You Have Extreme Poverty And High Crime And You Have To Admit That The Governance Of The Kabul Regime Has Been Poor And Has Been Losing Its Popular Legitimacy. You Have A Corrupt Police Force, Not To Mention Homelessness, Joblessness. The Problems Are Huge.

The Desert Weed Lives On, But The Flower Of Spring Blooms And Wilts.

My Books Are About Ordinary People, Like You, Me, People On The Street, People Who Really Have An Expectation Of Reasonable Happiness In Life, Want Their Life To Have A Sense Of Security And Predictability, Who Want To Belong To Something Bigger Than Them, Who Want Love And Affection In Their Life, Who Want A Good Future For The Children.

[kite Runner And A Thousand Splendid Suns] Is Not Just Unique To Books, But Films And Music.

When I Went To Afghanistan In 2003, I Walked Into A War Zone. Entire Neighborhoods Had Been Demolished. There Were An Overwhelming Number Of Widows And Orphans And People Who Had Been Physically And Emotionally Damaged; Every 10-year-old Kid On The Street Knew How To Dismantle A Kalashnikov In Under A Minute. I Would Flip Through Math Textbooks Intended For Third Grade, Fourth Grade, And They Would Include Word Problems Such As, "if You Have 100 Grenades And 20 Mujahideen, How Many Grenades Per Mujahideen Do You Get?" War Has Infiltrated Every Facet Of Life.

He Had The Blue Kite In His Hands; That Was The First Thing I Saw. And I Can't Lie Now And Say My Eyes Didn't Scan It For Any Rips.

At Least, It Is Encouraging To Me That President [barack] Obama Has Put Afghanistan Front And Center In This Broader So-called War On Terror, And That He Is Taking A Different Approach To Afghanistan.

There Are A Lot Of Children In Afghanistan, But Little Childhood.

But Better To Get Hurt By The Truth Than Comforted With A Lie.

I Think Novelists, When They Write Their Books, End Up Having Occasionally Serving A Purpose And Playing Roles That They Never Really Fully Either Intended Or Even Understood.

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Joyce Carol Oates

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