Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry, and his mother was a teacher. The family was living in Paris in 1980 when the Russians occupied Afghanistan, and they were granted political asylum in the United States. They moved to California, where Hosseini graduated from high school and later earned a degree in biology from Santa Clara University in 1988. In 1993, Hosseini graduated from the University of California, San Diego, with a degree in medicine. He practiced medicine as an internist until 2004.

In his free time, Hosseini began to write. His first novel, The Kite Runner (2004), was an immediate success, eventually becoming an international bestseller. Now published in forty-three languages, The Kite Runner tells the story of the friendship between two boys who grow up in Afghanistan in the same house but under extremely different circumstances. One is the son of a wealthy man; the other is the son of one of the house servants. Their lives reflect the tragedies of Afghanistan as the country changes from monarchal to Taliban rule.

In 2006, Hosseini was named a goodwill envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency. He helps refugees not just from Afghanistan but from all over the world. Some of his most recent work has been in Chad. In May 2007, Hosseini published his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Today, Hosseini lives with his wife and two children in northern California.