Thousand Splendid Suns

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“A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini is a historical fiction novel that unveiled the horrific struggles that both women and young girls faced in Afghanistan between the 1960s to the early 2000s. In the novel, the struggles are shown through the eyes of two women. Hosseini wrote “A Thousand Splendid Suns” to bring insight to the forgotten people of Afghanistan.
The novel opens with 5-year-old Mariam dropping her mother’s sugar bowl, which was a piece of Nana’s, Mariam’s mother, precious tea set. Nana got very angry and grabbed Mariam by the wrists, calling her a clumsy little harami. A few years later, Mariam understands what the word means and she feels like Nana is saying that she is an illegitimate person and that she will never …show more content…

As her family is packing up to leave Kabul, a stray rocket hits her house, leaving her unconscious and her mother and father dead. Laila wakes up in Mariam and Rasheed’s house, and they take care of her as she heals from the explosion. While she’s staying in their home, Rasheed decides he wants to marry her. Mariam protests, but Rasheed doesn’t care what she thinks. Laila agrees to marry Rasheed because she is pregnant and can pass the baby off as his. When Laila tells Rasheed she is pregnant, he is overjoyed. He hopes for a boy, and during Laila’s pregnancy he treats her like a queen. When Laila delivers a baby girl, Rasheed is disgusted by the smells and sounds baby Aziza makes. Rasheed neglects Aziza and implies that the baby isn’t his. Laila decided that she was going to run away soon after baby Aziza was born. Laila, Mariam, and baby Aziza get to the train station and find a man that they think is willing to act as their relative but instead he tells the authorities. The women are taken to a police station, and then sent home. Rasheed punishes them by putting them in separate hot rooms without water or food for one day. He then threatens to kill them if they try to run away again. Laila gets pregnant again, and this time gives birth to the boy Rasheed has been hoping for. They name him Zalmai,

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