Literary Legends: Khaled Hosseini

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More About

• Khaled Hosseini
• The Kite Runner
• United Nations Refugee Agency
• Women's Issues
• Human Rights

Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan, moved to California as a teenager, graduated from medical school, and proceeded to write two novels, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, both of which tell heartbreaking stories of family and friendship against a backdrop of rarely examined Afghan history. The most significant difference between the two books is a gendered one: "The Kite Runner was dominated by men," Hosseini says, "and I knew, even as I was finishing it, that I was going to write about Afghanistan again and that this time I would write about Afghan women. The struggle of Afghan women was simply too compelling, too tragic, and too important and relevant a story." Dr. Hosseini, now a goodwill envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency, will discuss these and other stories.
Fri., Oct. 17, 8 p.m., 2008