In 1973, Hosseini's family returned to Kabul, and Hosseini's youngest brother was born in July of that year.
In 1970, Hosseini and his family moved to Iran where his father worked for the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tehran. Hosseini does not recall his sister, Raya, ever suffering discrimination for being a female, and he remembers Kabul as "a growing, thriving, cosmopolitan city", where he regularly flew kites with his cousins. He spent eight years of his childhood in the upper class Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood in Kabul. Hosseini describes his upbringing as privileged. There's a Pashtun part of me, a Tajik part of me." His mother's family is believed to be from the Mohammadzai tribe of Pashtuns. Regarding his ethnicity, Hosseini stated, "I'm not pure anything. His father, Nasser, worked as a diplomat for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul while his mother worked as a Persian language teacher at a girls' high school both originate from Herat. Hosseini was born on March 4, 1965, in Kabul, Afghanistan, the eldest of five children. In addition to writing, Hosseini has advocated for the support of refugees, including establishing with the UNHCR the Khaled Hosseini Foundation to support Afghan refugees returning to Afghanistan. His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), spent 103 weeks on the chart, including 15 at number one while his third novel, And the Mountains Echoed (2013), remained on the chart for 33 weeks. The Kite Runner spent 101 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, including three weeks at number one. His three novels have all reached various levels of critical and commercial success. The success of The Kite Runner meant he was able to retire from medicine in order to write full-time. In later interviews, Hosseini admitted to feeling survivor's guilt for having been able to leave the country prior to the Soviet invasion and subsequent wars.Īfter graduating from college, Hosseini worked as a physician in California, a situation he likened to "an arranged marriage".
Hosseini did not return to Afghanistan until 2003 when he was 38, an experience similar to that of the protagonist in The Kite Runner. When Hosseini was 15, his family applied for asylum in the United States, where he later became a naturalized citizen. His debut novel The Kite Runner (2003) was a critical and commercial success the book and his subsequent novels have all been at least partially set in Afghanistan and have featured an Afghan as the protagonist.īorn in Kabul, Afghanistan, to a diplomat father, Hosseini spent some time living in Iran and France. Khaled Hosseini ( / ˈ h ɑː l ɛ d h oʊ ˈ s eɪ n i/ Persian/Pashto خالد حسینی born March 4, 1965) is an Afghan-American novelist, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, and former physician.
Recorded February 2014 from the BBC Radio 4 programme Bookclub
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