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The Kite Runner | Introduction

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was published in 2003. Initially published by Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin, The Kite Runner was said to be the first novel written in English by an Afghan writer, and the book appeared on many book club reading lists. The novel is set in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to 1981 and the start of the Soviet occupation, then in the Afghan community in Fremont, California from the 1980s to the early 2000s, and finally in contemporary Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.

The Kite Runner is the story of strained family relationships between a father and a son, and between two brothers, how they deal with guilt and forgiveness, and how they weather the political and social transformations of Afghanistan from the 1970s to 2001. The Kite Runner opens in 2001. The adult narrator, Amir, lives in San Francisco and is contemplating his past, thinking about a boyhood friend whom he has betrayed. The action of the story then moves backward in time to the narrator's early life in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he is the only child of a privileged merchant. Amir's closest friend is his playmate and servant Hassan, a poor illiterate boy who is a member of the Hazara ethnic minority. The Kite Runner, a coming-of-age novel, deals with the themes of identity, loyalty, courage, and deception. As the protagonist Amir grows to adulthood, he must come to terms with his past wrongs and adjust to a new culture after leaving Afghanistan for the United States.

The novel sets the interpersonal drama of the characters against the backdrop of the modern history of Afghanistan, sketching the political and economic toll of the instability of various regimes in Afghanistan; from the end of the monarchy to the Soviet-backed government of the 1980s to the fundamentalist Taliban government of the 1990s. The action closes soon after the fall of the Taliban and alludes to the rise of Hamid Karzai as leader of a new Afghan government in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.

The Kite Runner Summary

Chapters 1-5

The Kite Runner opens in December 2001. The narrator, Amir, meditates on the past, recalling a walk in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and alludes to a more distant moment of crisis in 1976. The narrator considers the way that the past has a way of returning despite one's efforts to forget it. He mentions the names of several characters slated to appear in later chapters. After this opening, the novel uses a flashback, a device through which the narrator tells about events that happened before the present action of the story. This flashback lasts for many chapters, returning the reader, near the end of the novel, to 2001, the time in which the first chapter is set. The first five chapters sketch the details of Amir's childhood in Kabul, his daily life with his friend and servant Hassan in his father's large house, and his burgeoning interest in literature. Hassan and his father live on Amir's father's property in a separate servant's house. They are members of a minority ethnic group in Afghanistan known as the Hazara. Victims of casual discrimination by the privileged classes, the Hazara in The Kite Runner are derided for their appearance and generally live as second-class citizens. However, Hassan and his father Ali, servants in Baba's household, are treated fairly well as members of the family. Ali has known Baba for decades and Hassan and Amir, despite their differences in ethnicity and status, are constant playmates.

As if to further emphasize the differences between them, Hassan has a birth defect, a harelip, which gives him the appearance of constantly smiling. The reader sees the relationship between the young Amir and Hassan in several crucial scenes. The most important of these depicts an encounter between the two friends and a group of older bullies led by Assef, a half-German, half-Afghan boy who accuses Amir of being a traitor to the Pashtun ethnicity by playing with a Hazara boy. While Amir is paralyzed with fear, Hassan ignores the racist insults and drives the bullies away by threatening them with his slingshot. Assef and his minions retreat, but not before Assef threatens revenge.

The novel details the increasingly turbulent political developments in Afghanistan. As Amir and Hassan grow up, dreaming of being Rostan and Sohrab, the heroes of the Afghan heroic legend the Shahnammah, the events of history invade their world of stories and play. Amir and Hassan get a taste of how politics can affect daily life when they hear gunfire in the streets. Although Ali tells the boys that it is only the sound of fireworks, these sounds foreshadow, or look ahead to, the overthrow of the monarchy by a military coup. Meanwhile, Amir and Hassan continue to play together, but Amir often feels jealous of the attention that Hassan receives from Baba, who treats Hassan less like a servant than like a family member. Indeed, for Hassan's birthday, Baba pays a surgeon to perform an operation to correct his harelip. As Hassan is healing from his surgery, Amir sees him gingerly smile with his new mouth, an observation that foreshadows tragic events to come.

Chapters 6-7

The narrator meditates on the fun times Amir and Hassan enjoy during the wintertime and describes the events leading up to the 1975 kite tournament in Kabul. Amir describes the annual kite festival, the strategy of kite-fighting, and the importance of "kite runners" like Hassan, who retrieve the kites cut down by the razor-sharp strings of victorious kites as the surviving competitors become fewer and fewer. These detailed descriptions of the practice and strategies of kite-fighting and kite-running lead into a flashback that showcases Hassan's uncanny talent at running down fallen kites. Encouraged by his father, Amir decides to compete seriously in the kite-fighting competition, in part because he genuinely enjoys the sport, but mostly because he hopes to earn his father's admiration by winning the tournament.

On the morning of the kite tournament, Hassan relates a strange dream he has had in which he and Amir swim out into Ghargha Lake, which is said to be inhabited by a terrible monster. In this dream they swim out and return unharmed, despite the dozens of onlookers on the shore warning them to return. Although Amir, irritable from a restless night's sleep, dismisses the dream, it proves prophetic. The narration shows the reader the excitement and festivity of the streets on the day of the kite tournament as well as the seriousness of the competitors. Amir's extreme nervousness is compounded by the knowledge that his father is finally supporting him and plans to watch the tournament from his rooftop. Tensions between father and son are so strained that Amir actually wonders whether, if he loses, his father might take pleasure in his defeat. Nevertheless, Amir performs admirably, making many impressive tactical maneuvers until his and another kite are the only two remaining. Amir cuts the last kite out of the sky and sees his father on the roof cheering for him. He also shares the moment of victory with Hassan, who promises to run after the last defeated kite. Hassan is eager to help his friend by retrieving the prize: "For you a thousand times over!" Hassan finds the fallen kite, but is chased by some other boys. Amir follows some noises to an alley off the bazaar where, undetected himself, he discovers a horrific scene: Assef, Kamal, and Wali threaten to take the kite from Hassan; Hassan, unable to fight them off, is raped by Assef while Assef's friends hold him down. Rather than step in and fight Hassan's attackers, Amir freezes, remains hidden, and eventually runs away in fear. After the rape, Hassan finds Amir in the street and they return home with the kite without discussing the attack at all, although Hassan is visibly distraught. Amir returns home to a hero's welcome from his father and his father's friends.

Chapters 8-9

Hassan becomes extremely remote, performing his household duties invisibly and avoiding Amir entirely. Neither Amir nor Hassan reveal to Baba what has happened; Amir tries to avoid thinking of his failure to... » Complete The Kite Runner Summary