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imaad_udeen
07-14-2005, 01:47 PM
Has anyone read this novel by an Afghan writer?

I have, thus far, only read 140 pages or so, but it's a beautiful novel so far. One of the best I have read in years.

I strongly reccomend it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...607700-1240940
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Batoota
07-16-2005, 10:28 AM
:sl:

Sounds fascinating! As I don't trust ordering online (for some reason :confused: ), i'll insha Allah wait for it to appear in the bookstores or libraries :D

Jazak Allah koli khair,

:w: :sister:
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aminahjaan
12-24-2007, 07:33 AM
:sl: I recently finished "The Kite Runner" By Khaled Hosseini. I really liked it and there's actually a movie, but I saw the cast & stuff, they didn't look anything as I'd pictured them. Except for Sorraya, and that's about it. And Assef was supposed to be german or whatever, and he looked Afghani. Anyways, aside from the movie, if you have read it post what you think about it, and if you haven't I recommend it. Oh and by the way, if you have seen the movie, what do you think about it because I don't know whether it's worth seeing in theaters or not. :)

:w:
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aminahjaan
12-24-2007, 07:39 AM
yeah aminahgorilla you rock!!!!!!
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BlackMamba
12-24-2007, 07:42 AM
O ya Kite runner was actually a real good book. I read it last summer it almost made me cry lol it was so sad. but ya its an awesome book
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snakelegs
12-24-2007, 07:52 AM
it was recommended to me by a pashtun friend. i liked the book very much - it was very moving.
i haven't decided whether or not i should support the movie because of all the controversy around it - also, i'm not too crazy about movies.
but i'd be curious if anyone has seen it.
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Muezzin
12-24-2007, 02:48 PM
I certainly know what to look for in Waterstone's during the Christmas sales...
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crayon
12-24-2007, 02:57 PM
Brilliant book, loved it.

I didn't even know there was a movie until just now.
What's the controversy about?
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chacha_jalebi
12-24-2007, 03:01 PM
although i havent read the book, i only read the back:D

but it still sounds good, the movie will probably be goood aswell
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aminahjaan
12-24-2007, 05:10 PM
yeah and a thousand splendid suns was a really good book, and my brother and I are gonna see kite runner today, it was only in limited theaters before but now its everywhere. Khaled Hosseini should've waited till the book got more popular so more people could fund the movie, and have more of a hype about it....ah well.
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snakelegs
12-24-2007, 07:15 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by crayon
Brilliant book, loved it.

I didn't even know there was a movie until just now.
What's the controversy about?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6992751.stm

the kids are now out of afghanistan so the movie has been released (later than planned).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7132331.stm

i have mixed feelings about seeing it.
i also recommend thousand splendid suns.
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The Ruler
12-24-2007, 07:35 PM
:sl:

format_quote Originally Posted by Muezzin
I certainly know what to look for in Waterstone's during the Christmas sales...
And what to buy with my £10 coupon. Hah.

I'm weighing up the odds of the movie being better than the book. Hmmm...

:w:
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crayon
12-24-2007, 07:38 PM
Movies are never better than books.
It's like a law or something, I'm sure.
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The Ruler
12-24-2007, 07:41 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by snakelegs
i also recommend thousand splendid suns.
I've read that and found it rather too fairy-tale like. You know? The 'living-happily-ever-after-*awww-like-mimi*' type? (:-P)
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aminahjaan
12-24-2007, 07:49 PM
yeah its fairy taleish but kiterunner beats it anyday
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Hafswa
02-17-2009, 10:18 AM
Just finished reading a very interesting book and wanted to recommend it to all the novel readers on this forum. The title is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini .....here is a review from the New York times:

THE KITE RUNNER
By Khaled Hosseini.


THIS powerful first novel, by an Afghan physician now living in California, tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces.

But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in ''The Kite Runner,'' are only a part of this story. A more personal plot, arising from Amir's close friendship with Hassan, the son of his father's servant, turns out to be the thread that ties the book together. The fragility of this relationship, symbolized by the kites the boys fly together, is tested as they watch their old way of life disappear.

Amir is served breakfast every morning by Hassan; then he is driven to school in the gleaming family Mustang while his friend stays home to clean the house. Yet Hassan bears Amir no resentment and is, in fact, a loyal companion to the lonely boy, whose mother is dead and whose father, a rich businessman, is often preoccupied. Hassan protects the sensitive Amir from sadistic neighborhood bullies; in turn, Amir fascinates Hassan by reading him heroic Afghan folk tales. Then, during a kite-flying tournament that should be the triumph of Amir's young life, Hassan is brutalized by some upper-class teenagers. Amir's failure to defend his friend will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Hosseini's depiction of pre-revolutionary Afghanistan is rich in warmth and humor but also tense with the friction between the nation's different ethnic groups. Amir's father, or Baba, personifies all that is reckless, courageous and arrogant in his dominant Pashtun tribe. He loves nothing better than watching the Afghan national pastime, buzkashi, in which galloping horsemen bloody one another as they compete to spear the carcass of a goat. Yet he is generous and tolerant enough to respect his son's artistic yearnings and to treat the lowly Hassan with great kindness, even arranging for an operation to mend the child's harelip.

As civil war begins to ravage the country, the teenage Amir and his father must flee for their lives. In California, Baba works at a gas station to put his son through school; on weekends he sells secondhand goods at swap meets. Here too Hosseini provides lively descriptions, showing former professors and doctors socializing as they haggle with their customers over black velvet portraits of Elvis.

Despite their poverty, these exiled Afghans manage to keep alive their ancient standards of honor and pride. And even as Amir grows to manhood, settling comfortably into America and a happy marriage, his past shame continues to haunt him. He worries about Hassan and wonders what has happened to him back in Afghanistan.

The novel's canvas turns dark when Hosseini describes the suffering of his country under the tyranny of the Taliban, whom Amir encounters when he finally returns home, hoping to help Hassan and his family. The final third of the book is full of haunting images: a man, desperate to feed his children, trying to sell his artificial leg in the market; an adulterous couple stoned to death in a stadium during the halftime of a football match; a rouged young boy forced into prostitution, dancing the sort of steps once performed by an organ grinder's monkey.

When Amir meets his old nemesis, now a powerful Taliban official, the book descends into some plot twists better suited to a folk tale than a modern novel. But in the end we're won over by Amir's compassion and his determination to atone for his youthful cowardice.

In ''The Kite Runner,'' Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence -- forces that continue to threaten them even today.
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sevgi
02-17-2009, 10:21 AM
Omg, this review ruins the whole book. It tells all that happens...
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Hafswa
02-17-2009, 10:30 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by sevgi
Omg, this review ruins the whole book. It tells all that happens...
Sort of.....but it doesn't capure the intensity of the writers words.. Its amazing how you are there with him through the whole story.....extraordinary I must say.
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sevgi
02-17-2009, 10:33 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Hafswa
Sort of.....but it doesn't capure the intensity of the writers words.. Its amazing how you are there with him through the whole story.....extraordinary I must say.
Yeah it was a very nice read. I cried loads.
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Hafswa
02-17-2009, 11:32 AM
:D.....akhi I thought I was the only who did...
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Erundur
02-17-2009, 04:57 PM
that book was depressing, I read it once and that's it, I'm never gonna open it up again. I didn't even bother to see the movie version.
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Dawud_uk
02-18-2009, 06:11 AM
:sl:

this book is propoganda, written by a man living in the US who knows less about afghanistan than many people here other than what he researched, with no personal experience.

i am fed up of these books written by western living 'muslims' which attack islam and show it is a negative light towards the kuffar readers.

ok everything isnt perfect, but show islam in a positive light, show the cultural aspects in the negative if you must.
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zanjabeela
02-18-2009, 06:28 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Hafswa
:D.....akhi I thought I was the only who did...
:sl:
I think you meant ukhti...sevgi is a girl :)

I haven't read this book yet, but I read the second one of his, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Oh my goodness, but that one was a real tear-jerker. It made me really want to read this book. I've used up my tears quota for the first three months of the year, though...so I'll get it later, when I'm ready to cry again!
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aminahjaan
02-18-2009, 06:33 AM
I don't cry a lot.
But I bawled like Michael Jordan
It was so sad and powerful!
Khaled Hosseini is my favorite writer, he writes with a lot of emotion and is very genuine.



+I like him even more because he looks like my favorite uncle lol
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Hafswa
02-18-2009, 06:40 AM
[QUOTE=zAnjabeela;1100258]:sl:
I think you meant ukhti...sevgi is a girl :)

:giggling:Thanks for the correction....I actually meant it in swahili....but now I know more arab words :D
QUOTE]

format_quote Originally Posted by zAnjabeela
:sl:

I haven't read this book yet, but I read the second one of his, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Oh my goodness, but that one was a real tear-jerker. It made me really want to read this book. I've used up my tears quota for the first three months of the year, though...so I'll get it later, when I'm ready to cry again!
Will be sure to read this one too. Sounds like it will be yet another excellet read.
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zanjabeela
02-18-2009, 06:41 AM
Well, now I know a swahili word! Woohoo! :D Thanks, hon!
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Hafswa
02-18-2009, 06:45 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by aminahjaan
I don't cry a lot.
But I bawled like Michael Jordan
It was so sad and powerful!
Khaled Hosseini is my favorite writer, he writes with a lot of emotion and is very genuine.



+I like him even more because he looks like my favorite uncle lol
I know...you really relate with him and get a feel of his character.
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...
02-18-2009, 09:52 AM
I've read that book, and it made me feel horrible!

It does portray Islam in very weird way, but not only that - its just depressing! and unrealistic :ermm:
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Hafswa
02-18-2009, 10:09 AM
I don't mean this in a bad way but what ever happened to reading books for the thrill and excitment? I hope the thread does not rub anyone the wrong way but I am enjoying the different perspectives we are all bringing out.....kind of reminds me of the stir the Da Vinci code created......
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Hafswa
02-18-2009, 10:16 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by zanjabeela
Well, now I know a swahili word! Woohoo! :D Thanks, hon!
It's pretty easy especially if you know Arab because it's a mixture of Arab and Bantu words from the East African countries example...
Shukran in swahili is shukrani and Haddith in swahili is hadithi ;Dsame word just adding a little spice...
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nazam786
02-18-2009, 11:36 AM
Its not that bad buying from online. You just have to know what your doing and who you buy from. Big companys are allways allways safe.
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MO783
02-18-2009, 12:14 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Shakoor15
O ya Kite runner was actually a real good book. I read it last summer it almost made me cry lol it was so sad. but ya its an awesome book
i saw the movie but cant remember what sad bit you are talking about ?

:sl:
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Erundur
02-18-2009, 04:02 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Rose_Ice
It does portray Islam in very weird way
:sl:
no it doesn't, its a very realistic version how many Afghans view islam in this day and age:cry:. That's how I could relate to the story very well, not from my personal family but of others. Of course there are pious Afghans, but not that many that I can see and talk to. :hmm:

ethnocentrism is a disease :grumbling
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Zahida
02-18-2009, 04:22 PM
:sl:I watched the Kite Runner in 2007 and found the story to be fascinating with a deep hidden message. I especially liked the charscter of Sorraya. Of course there were parts of the film that were sad when theyoung boy was raped etc and when the father became ill.

Khaled Hosseini is an outstanding author. I have also read A Thousand Splendid Suns by him and again was touched by the way it was written....................:bump1::D
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fatima_01
02-18-2009, 10:00 PM
its an....intresting book, but like many other books it portrays islam in a bad way :(
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Raizins
02-19-2009, 02:52 PM
Salamu3alaikum
I loveddd that book mashAllah ! But although the plot was well driven driven and amazing and unpredicatable, I have to admit that I liked "A Thousand Splendid Suns" even better. It was written by the same author, and it had a different plot, but it had the same setting and time period, and it was written in a girls perspective. <3
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Lonely Gal
02-19-2009, 02:56 PM
The book is really good but i heard the movie dont do it justice...
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