I recently read A Thousand Splendid Suns, second novel by Khaled Hossieni and I am stunned. As I was reading the book there were moments I needed to close the book, cry with Layla and grudge with Mariam and then I had to take a deep breath and continue reading.
When I started the book I knew it will be difficult to read specially after reading Kite Runner the first novel by same author. At the end again I was surprised how brutal and violence the life can be and how lucky we are.
The story sets in Afghanistan during Soviet war in Afghanistan and Civil war.
Khaled's story starts with Mariam, she is 14 years old lives with her mother in a suburb area of Heart. Her father visits her on a weekly basis. She is a child out of the marriage and this is prohibited in countries like Afghanistan therefore she has to be hidden from others. She loves her father but her mother doesn’t believe he loves her the same way and she thinks weekly visit is just a duty in his burden.
One day when she is waiting for her father to take her to the cinema, after failing to come she decides to find his father’s house that lives with other wives and children.
The dream of living with her father soon turns to a nightmare; she must marry to an older man, a shoe maker 12-15 years older than her who is abusive and violent.
Then story turns to a Layla, she is born almost the same time when Layla lost her child. We watch her to grow in a middle class family. The father is intellectual and he taught life and reading books and history. She has a grieving mother who suffers from depression in loosing of her two sons in war.
We meet Layla’s childhood friend who lost one of his leg passing by mine filed. She is growing up in the Soviet Union power in Afghanistan. She has the right of going to school. Then life get harder on people who lived in Afghanistan, when the childhood friend leaves the city layla’s family decide to leave the country too. But life had a different arrangement for Layla and her family.
Layla and Mariam’s life will change forever.
The book is a fiction novel but gives us a decent and not fictional suffering of ordinary people and the consequences of the war in people lives. The change of the regimes means change in believes, politic, economic and culture. In countries like Afghanistan the significant changes are toward women since they have the least right in the country. Women forced to give up their jobs, universities and schools.
Female doctors who were practicing until yesterday can't practice anymore, most hospitals only runs for men and only few for women. In women hospitals there are not much equipment and sometime they need do surgery without anesthesia.
In My opinion “A Thousands Splendid Suns” can't be claimed as a literature book nor can be references as a history book but we can give Mr Hosseini the credit of giving us a decent picture of the three decades of lives of ordinary people in Afghanistan. People who suffered, killed, tortured, lost family and friends as a result of the war in the past 3 decades.
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