Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780747566533
ISBN: 0747566534
Label: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: June 07, 2004
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Sales Rank: 49
Studio: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.

Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.

The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park. --Lisa Alward, Amazon.ca




Rating: - wow
I'm not normally a reader, it's been many years since I've managed to find a book captivating enough to catch my attention all the way through; until i found this book.
I decided to give reading another go and started reading The Kite Runner, and I was amazed! It truly is one of those books you just can't put down.
There are many experienced reviewers here who are big fans - but even from a non experienced novel reader there is something everybody will enjoy and take out of this.
Read More

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Rating: - Books This Good Come Along Rarely
Though 'The Kite Runner' was first published in 2003 it reads like a book written by one of the masters of literature centuries ago - the level of language used, and the timeless story of friendship, betrayal, guilt and redemption make me believe that this will not be a book to be forgotten anytime soon but will be a book to outlive us all.

I put off reading this novel for a good few years as the blurb never gripped me - there was too much focus on Afghanistan and the country's fall ... Read More

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Rating: - Drop everything - read this book!
Oh my goodness, just finished The Kite Runner! The most epically tragic book I have ever read. My heart feels abit broken.....

After reading this book I just wanted to scoop all the characters up and tell them it will be ok. I had tears in my eyes throughout,this really is a very special book.

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Rating: - A Page Turner that's Good for the Soul
A lot of novels are "worthy" but you need to put a lot of effort into getting the most out of them; others are page-turners and pass the time easily and pleasurably, but don't do much else. The Kite Runner has that rare quality of being both worthy and a page-turner - and you learn a good slice about Afghan culture to boot. It's a very concisely written novel which tells a fascinating story and which contains sharply-observed characters that you come to really care about; the author's honesty shines ... Read More

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Rating: - Excellent
On a Winter's day in 1975 Amir witnesses an awful act involving his childhood friend Hassan that will have unimaginable bearings on the rest of his life. Amir is the privaleged son of a rich and respected merchant in Afghanistan; Hassan is the son of his father's long-time servant Ali. Although from different ends of the spectrum, the boys share a childhood until the day that changes both of their lives forever.
There are so many themes running through Hosseini's book; friendship, childhood, loyalty, ... Read More

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