Who Is The Kite Runner?

The Kite Runner is a novel about friendship and betrayal. It is a story of two boys growing up in Afghanistan. Amir was the young son of a wealthy Kabul businessman. They had two Hazara servants, Ali and his son Hassan, who was Amir’s closest friend. Hassan and his father lived in the mud hut at the bottom of Amir’s garden. Amir felt like he was not good enough to his father (Baba), but he was close to Baba’s friend Rahim Khan. Amir and Hassan liked to fly kites and read stories together, though Amir went to school and Hassan did not. One day, three boys named Wali, Kamal, and Assef threatened Amir, but Hassan scared them away with his slingshot. During the winter, there was a big kite-fighting competition where boys had to cut each other’s

Also that they have Hazaras (slaves) and kite competition is popular. Kabul appears as a dangerous, and war-torn country in the story.

The Kite Runner takes place in a few different locations, first in the Wazir Akbar Khan district in northern Kabul, Afghanistan. The climate there goes from summer where it is hot and dry to winter when it snows. Hosseini also brings up how religion sometimes changes relationship, through Amir who was a Sunni muslim while Hassan was Shi’a.

The biggest gender issues in this book relate to the culture of Middle Eastern Society. Amir must address all adults as “Kaka” or “Khala” (uncle and aunt) regardless of his blood relation to them. Also, when Amir wanted to marry Soraya, he had to ask his Baba to meet with General Taheri for Soraya’s hand.

Quotes:

“Long before the Roussi army marched into Afghanistan, long before villages were burned and schools destroyed… Kabul had become a city of ghosts for me. A city of harelipped ghosts. America was different. America was a river, roaring 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”. —Amir (Chapter

“There’s going to be peace, Inshallah, and happiness and calm. No more rockets, no more killing, no more funerals!” But he just turned off the radio and asked if he could get me anything before he went to bed. A few weeks later, the Taliban banned kite fighting. And two years later, in 1998, they massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif.” —Rahim Khan (Chapter 16)

“He pointed to an old man dressed in ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap sack filled with scrub grass tied to his back. “That’s the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. That’s the Afghanistan I know. You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.” —Amir, Farid (Chapter