Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner, has become an international publishing phenomenon and a modern classic. This tale of childhood innocence betrayed, set against three tragic decades in the history of Afghanistan, gave readers around the world an insight into the human truth behind the headlines.
This unforgettable book is the product of Khaled Hosseini's own life experience. Born in Afghanistan, his family fled to the United States when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. In the U.S. Khaled Hosseini became a successful physician, but he longed to tell the world something of the life he knew before his country was consumed by war. He rose at four o'clock every morning to work on The Kite Runner before a full day of seeing patients. Following the enormous success of his first book, a second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, soon joined it on the bestseller lists. In addition to his thriving literary career, Dr. Hosseini now serves as a special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, assisting displaced persons in war zones around the world. In this podcast, recorded at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, he reflects on the journey that led him from his homeland of Afghanistan to exile in the United States, through the process of learning a new language in his teens and becoming a doctor and an author.