A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book written by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. His first novel ”The Kite Runner” was a big success. A Thousand Splendid Suns is his second novel and it was published in 2007. It´s great, touching and heartbreaking story about two very different kind of woman, Laila and Mariam. Life in Afghanistan over the last decades has been a struggle especially for women. In Afghanistan has been waged wars for decades; The Soviet war lasted over nine years (1979-1989), after that three Civil wars including the time when the Taliban controlled most of the Afghanistan and since 2001 (after the September 11th attacks) ISAF and NATO has been involvement the war in Afghanistan. All these wars are clearly on display in the novel so it increased my knowledge of history in Afghanistan.
Thera are two protagonist in this novel, Mariam and Laila. Mariam was born in 1958 as an illegitimate, unwanted child. She is uneducated and she lives with her mother in a small cottage the first fifteen years of her life. Then her mother dies and she is forced to marry a middle-aged shoemaker Rasheed. They move in Kabul which is the capital of Afghanistan. Mariam´s life is very hard including many miscarriages and cruel, violent husband. The other protagonist Laila was born in 1978 to an intelligence family. Laila´s father was a teacher in the university before the Soviets forced him to leave his job. Laila´s childhood is very different compared to Mariam´s. Laila goes to school and has many good friends. Her best friend is Tariq, a boy who lost his leg to a landmine at the age of five. Laila´s carefree life ends when she is 14. Then Mariam´s and Laila´s lives are conneced in an unexpected way after a rocket kills Laila´s parents. Laila has no other choice than marry Rasheed. At first Mariam can´t stand that Rasheed took a second wife but little by little she and Laila become friends. Laila and her daughter Aziza give much joy to Mariam´s miserable life.
I liked Khaled Hosseini´s writing style very much. The language is beautiful and there are a few surprising plot twists. The characterisation of the protagonists is skilled. While he is telling Mariam´s and Laila´s story, he is also telling about Afghanistan´s history, culture and the status of women. Especially when the Taliban is controlling Afghanistan, being a woman is extremely hard. It´s out of my comprehension how women are treated; they must stay inside homes all the time and they will be beaten if they are walking alone in streets or laughing in public. Working and attending school is forbidden. It´s no wonder that things in Afghanistan are miserable when women, half of the nation are locked inside their houses. It is self-evident that without letting women participate in the society, the situation in Afghanistan isn´t getting any better.
In my opinion this book was great. A Thousand Splendid Suns deals with things like the war, child marriages and the poverty. The novel contains a love story and a beautiful tale of friendship. The deeper issue in the book is clearly the status of women in the Afghan society. The novel managed to evoke emotions and was interesting, touching and entertaining. The plot is very good and contains enough surprises. Some parts of the novel were hard to read. Rocket´s tearing children in pieces and Rasheed´s really violent behaviour brought tears to my eyes. If just reading things like that was hard to me, I can only imagine what people who have really suffered from the terrors of the war have felt.