her husband, Ali, preferring Baba, with whom she sleeps before running away even from him.

In her beauty, free-spirited nature, and independence, Sanaubar most resembles Laila in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Laila is a more developed and sympathetic character, but her affair with Tariq is evidence that she shares some of the same attitudes. Like Sanaubar, Laila is happy to take risks, but the fact that she faces danger to see her daughter Aziza shows that her priorities are different from Sanaubar’s, since Sanaubar is far from being a devoted mother.

Although Laila differs somewhat from Sanaubar, she is closer to her than any character in The Thorn Birds. Here, there are a few possible candidates. Mary Carson, in her manipulative nature and strong will, is a possibility, and so, for the same reasons, is Luke O’Neill. Both these characters, however, are considerably more malign than Sanaubar in their intentions, if not their actual influence on the story. Perhaps the closest match is with the protagonist, Meggie Cleary, who, like Sanaubar, is beautiful, strong-willed, passionate, and unconventional. The principal objection lies in comparing the central character in The Thorn Birds with a fairly minor one in The Kite Runner, but if Sanaubar had her own story or her own voice, she might not be very far from Meggie Cleary.

Soraya Taheri is a very kind person who feels very guilty about an episode in her past that she describes to Amir in the following way:

The Kite Runner is a novel with few female characters, and Soraya is perhaps the most sympathetic and complex of them. She is portrayed as intelligent, strong-willed, and courageous. Before meeting Amir, she ran away and lived with a man for a month, an act that caused a great scandal and devastated her parents, particularly her mother, who had a stroke. Soraya felt terribly guilty but was able to face and overcome the consequences of this early mistake.

Among the female characters in The Thorn Birds, the one who most resembles Soraya is Justine O'Neill. Justine is also intelligent and kind-hearted and refuses to let her unfortunate start in life as the daughter of Meggie and Luke hold her back. Soraya's polar opposite in this novel is Mary Carson, a woman who has enjoyed every possible advantage in life but becomes bitter and vindictive, obsessed with causing harm to those around her.

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, the closest character to Soraya is Laila. Laila also rises above her early mistakes, refusing to let them define or inhibit her. She becomes a positive force in the lives of others, finally marrying Tariq and teaching at an orphanage. The opposite of Soraya and Laila is Nana, whose bitterness overwhelms her, leading to her suicide.

The character of Paddy from Colleen McCullough's novel The Thorn Birds is arguably most like Baba in The Kite Runner. He also shares some pivotal similarities with Tariq from A Thousand Splendid Suns. 

Paddy Cleary can best be described as:

 ...a hardworking, simple, good hearted, and perpetually bewildered man who dies early. A man who believes in old ways and in keeping in one's place, he cannot afford for his children to remain in school, needing them on the home place to work; he believes as well in the strict delineation between woman's work and man's work. Both policies are hard on Fee and her eldest son, Frank, and this creates a rift between father and son. He is a character who imbues in his children the capacity for hard work and love for the land; an Irishman, he fled to New Zealand, where the novel begins, after killing an Englishman.

From this information, it is clear that Paddy shares some qualities with Baba. While Baba is wealthy and Paddy is poor, both men see the value of hard work and the importance of family loyalty.

Both men additionally have emotionally restrained relationships with their children. In Paddy's case, he finds himself experiencing tension with his eldest son, Frank, as the two compete for Fiona's attention. In Baba's case, his sense of moral superiority alienates Amir and makes him seem like a towering presence. 

Both Paddy and Baba have children responsible for atrocious acts. Like Paddy's son Frank--who ends up serving a thirty-year sentence for killing someone in a fight--Baba's son Amir ends up being complicit in a crime as well when he fails to stop the beating and rape of Hassan by an older bully. 

Both reveal critical information relating to their roles as fathers. Paddy winds up admitting that Frank is not actually his biological son, while Baba reveals that Hassan is actually his biological son. Both boys are "bastard" children born of affairs. 

Both travel far from their homelands, with Paddy migrating from Ireland to New Zealand and then to Australia, and Baba migrating from Afghanistan to California. 

Both committed transgressions of their own: Paddy killed a man in his home country, while Baba cheated on his wife. 

Finally, both men die under tragic circumstances; Paddy perishes in a lightning fire, while Baba passes away from cancer. 

We can also see how Paddy resembles Tariq in terms of their agreement to parent children who were not biologically their own. When Tariq returns to Laila after their long separation, he agrees to take care of Zalmai, even though the boy is the biological son of Rasheed. In much the same way, Paddy agrees to marry Fiona despite the fact that she has already given birth to the child of another man.

Paddy and Tariq are both also arguably similar in their disposition. They both have faced many trials and acted out against the law--as previously mentioned, Paddy killed a man, while Tariq was imprisoned for smuggling hashish--but both are inherently good-hearted individuals. 

Ali can be likened to Tariq, because both have physical disabilities. Ali was crippled by contracting polio as a boy and experiences paralysis in his lower face. This physical handicap caused him to be ridiculed by other children. Ali was taken in by Baba's father after his parents were killed. Similarly, Tariq was injured by a land mine at the age of five and wears a prosthetic leg. Like Ali was supported by Baba's father, Tariq was encouraged by his parents to not let his disability hold him back in life. Ali is unfailingly loyal to his son Hassan, Amir, and Baba, just as Tariq is loyal in his love for Leila even when they are separated for years.

A parallel between Amir and a character in The Thorn Birds is less clear, though one can still be made. Meggie is disadvantaged and in many ways neglected in her family, as she is the only girl out of ten Cleary children. Father Ralph is captivated by Meggie upon their first meeting and recognizes that she deserves special attention, and he is a father figure to her throughout childhood. Meggie is loyal to Ralph throughout her life, and he is the only man she ever truly loves, despite the forbidden nature of their relationship. Their physical intimacy, during which they conceive a child together, moves Meggie to leave her husband, Luke.

Although Sanaubar does not occupy many pages of the novel, her character has a significant impact through her relationships with two men, Ali and Baba, and as the mother of Hassan. Her beauty and its effect on men are presented as highly significant, in part because they influence her to seek her own path rather than adjust to being a traditional wife and mother. Even after she finally produces a son, she cannot stay and raise him. When she is old and no longer beautiful, however, she learns to value family.

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Laila likewise does not fit the traditional marital and maternal model. Like Sanaubar, Laila has a child by one man but is married to another, but her reason is different: she thinks the child’s father is dead. Another similarity is that neither woman is a member of the dominant Pashtun ethnic group, which disadvantages them in Afghan society. Laila also tries (unsuccessfully) to leave her husband, but not her baby, as she takes Aziza with her.

The character of Meggie in The Thorn Birds also resembles Sanaubar in having a child by man who is not her husband. She deliberately conceals this fact from her husband, Luke; in Sanaubar’s case, the reader is never quite sure if Ali knew about or condoned her sleeping with Baba. Meggie is similar as well in having a son and then leaving her husband, but different in that she takes her children and is especially devoted to the boy, Dane.