Biography of Khaled Hosseini
Current Occupation: Author
Previous Occupation:
Internist
Works:
The Kite Runner
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Hometown:
Kabul, Afghanistan
Current Residence: Sunnyvale, California
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Khaled Hosseini is a native of Kabul, Afghanistan, born March 4, 1965. Khaled's father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry. His mother was a girl's high-school teacher of Farsi and History.
When Khaled was eleven years old, the Afghan Foreign Ministry moved the Hosseini family to Paris, where they stayed for four years. On December 25, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and in 1980, the Hosseinis sought refuge in the United States. By September 1980, the family was granted political asylum and moved to San Jose, California.
Khaled graduated from high school in 1984. He then obtained a bachelor's degree in biology in 1988 from Santa Clara University. In 1989, Khaled entered medical school. In 1993, he earned a Medical Degree from University of California-San Diego's School of Medicine. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai
Hospital in Los Angeles. From 1996 to 2004, Khaled was a practicing internist. Today, Khaled continues to live in California with wife, Roya and two children: Haris and Farah.
The Kite Runner is Hosseini's first novel. He began writing the book in March of 2001 and published it in 2003. It was an instant success. In 2007, Hosseini published his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns.
While listening to Hosseini's audio CD, I noticed that he still speaks with an accent. Likewise, he carries the history of his country deep in his heart, and he wants the good things in Afghanistan to be remembered, too. He recalls the time when Kabul was a "thriving cosmopolitan city with its vibrant artistic, intellectual and cultural life" (Sethna). This story is largely fictional, but does include many autobiographical features of Hosseini's life.
Through the eyes of Amir, the audience experiences the sites, smells, sounds and feelings of the Afghan people before the Soviet war began. We are taken away with Amir into the dangerous lifestyle of exile. We sympathize with his challenge to assimilate into a new country's culture while struggling to hold on to his own.
While working full-time as an internist, Hosseini worked hard to promote his first novel. He gave more than 100 appearances on his promotional tour. The reactions of the public have largely been positive. Readers identify with the characters humanity and vulnerability. Hosseini later held a small acting role when The Kite Runner was filmed.
After 27 years, Hosseini returned to Kabul. After his return, he wrote an article entitled "Desperation in Kabul" for the New York Times in 2003. He found old familiar sites, even his father's old house. But he also found extreme poverty, oppression, extortion, and death. The visit he made left him wondering about the desolation of the city and the country at large (Hosseini par. 1-3). Because of this, Hosseini works with Relief International, urging his fans to help the people of Afghanistan today. He hopes for the future of Afghanistan with what he calls guarded optimism (Azad qu. 8).
Hosseini believes his writing style is largely western, though he is an avid reader of literature from both Eastern and Western cultures. He remembers being most moved by The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck while he was still in high school. This and many other classics are his top 10 list of favorite books. Some of the others are Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Animal Farm by George Orwell, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (Segretto par. 8-15).
Here are some fun facts about Khaled Hosseini, ...courtesy of barnesandnoble.com.
Good to Know
During his years in the U.S., Hosseini
has soaked in more than his share of American culture. He professes to
be a fan of such U.S. institutions as the music of Bruce Springsteen
and football. Still, he admits that he simply cannot appreciate
baseball, saying, "I think that to fully appreciate baseball, it helps
to have been born in the U.S."
When it comes to chickens, Hosseini is a chicken.
"I'm terrified of chickens," the writer confesses. "Absolutely
petrified. This intense and irrational fear is, I believe, caused by
the memory of a black hen we owned in Kabul when I was a child. She
used to peck her own chicks to death as soon as the eggs hatched."
When Hosseini isn't writing or tending to one of his patients, he enjoys games of no-limits Texas hold 'em poker with his brother and friends.
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