An eye opening journey
War-torn Afghanistan is a dangerous place for anyone to be, especially for women. A Thousand Splendid Suns takes us on a journey through the lives of two women as they struggle through both the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and the subsequent tyranny of the Taliban. It is a story of friendship, suffering and salvation.
The author of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini, was born in Kabul and moved to California in 1980. He is also the author of The Kite Runner, which was recently made into a movie.
The story begins with Miriam, a young girl living in a small shack outside the city of Herat. When she was born, Miriam's father arranged for her to live in a shack with her mother, away from the city, after fathering her illegitimately. After the suicide of her mother, Miriam is reluctantly taken into her father's home. Her father's wives do not accept her, and she is soon forced into an arranged marriage with Rasheed, a much older man. Rasheed and Miriam move all the way to Kabul, which is a new and strange city for Miriam. After several years and several failed attempts at pregnancy, Rasheed becomes abusive toward Miriam. It is at this point that Laila enters Miriam's life.
The story takes us through Laila's life as a small child in Afghanistan. She grows up with very liberal parents for Afghanistan at that time, and plans on attending University and having a career. She has a best friend Tariq, with whom she secretly becomes pregnant. All of Laila's dreams are suddenly turned upside-down when the war against the Russians begins. She loses her brothers to the war, and eventually she loses her parents when a stray bomb hits their house. Laila is seriously injured when the bomb hits, and is rescued by Rasheed, Miriams's husband. After spending several weeks healing in Rasheed's home, Laila is given an ultimatum: she can either go out into the streets of war-torn Kabul, or become Rasheed's second wife. Because she is secretly pregnant, Laila chooses to become Rasheed's wife, with hopes of appearing to legitimize the pregnancy.
At first the two women do not get along, but they eventually develop a deep friendship, which helps them survive Rasheed's constant abuse and the misogynistic ways of the Taliban. Laila and Miriam go through everything together, including surgery with no anesthesia and being locked up by Rasheed, with no food or water for days. They come to love each other like mother and daughter, and eventually take a major step together to end the constant abuse in their lives.
