Editeur - Casa editrice

Asia
Asia Centrale
Afghanistan

Anno - Date de Parution

Pagine - Pages

Titolo originale

Lingua - language - langue

Traduttore

In this shattering story of betrayal and redemption set in war-torn Afghanistan, childhood friends grow up as close as brothers, but face dramatically different fates when one flees to America after the Soviet invasion and the other is left behind.

In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil--in this case, Afghanistan--while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on his first try.
The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.")

Some of the plot's turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America's collective consciousness ("people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz"), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon. --Gisele Toueg

From Publishers Weekly
Hosseini's stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do Kabul merchant, is the first-person narrator, who marries, moves to California and becomes a successful novelist. But he remains haunted by a childhood incident in which he betrayed the trust of his best friend, a Hazara boy named Hassan, who receives a brutal beating from some local bullies. After establishing himself in America, Amir learns that the Taliban have murdered Hassan and his wife, raising questions about the fate of his son, Sohrab. Spurred on by childhood guilt, Amir makes the difficult journey to Kabul, only to learn the boy has been enslaved by a former childhood bully who has become a prominent Taliban official. The price Amir must pay to recover the boy is just one of several brilliant, startling plot twists that make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the true nature of his relationship to Hassan. Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium.

De Kaboul à San Francisco, des années 70 à nos jours, une déchirante histoire d'amitié et de trahison, avec, en arrière-plan, la chronique tourmentée d'un pays dévasté : l'Afghanistan. Bien que frères de lait, Amir et Hassan ont grandi dans des mondes différents : le premier est le fils d'un riche commerçant, le second est le fils de leur serviteur. Inséparables, liés par une même passion, les deux garçons se vouent une amitié indéfectible. Mais ce lien va se briser à jamais. Alors que sous ses yeux Hassan subit une véritable ignominie, Amir reste pétrifié. Peur ? Lâcheté ? Honte ? Pris dans une terrible confusion des sentiments, il n'esquissera pas un geste pour sauver son ami. Eté 2001. Réfugié depuis plusieurs années aux Etats-Unis, Amir reçoit un appel du Pakistan. Il existe un moyen de te racheter, lui annonce une voix au téléphone. Mais ce moyen passe par une plongée au cœur de l'Afghanistan des talibans... et de son propre passé.

Khaled Hosseini. Figlio di un diplomatico, è nato a Kabul, in Afghanistan. La sua famiglia ha ottenuto l’asilo politico negli Stati Uniti nel 1980. Vive nel nord della California e fa il medico. Il cacciatore di aquiloni è il primo romanzo epico afgano, uno straordinario caso letterario pubblicato in 12 paesi. Dreamworks, la casa di produzione di Steven Spielberg, ha acquistato i diritti per trarne un film.

Biographie de l'auteur
Khaled Hosseini est né à Kaboul, en Afghanistan, en 1965. Fils de diplomate, il a obtenu avec sa famille le droit d'asile aux Etats-Unis en 1980. Son premier roman, Les Cerfs-volants de Kaboul, a bénéficié d'un extraordinaire bouche à oreille. Acclamé par la critique, il est resté de nombreuses semaines en tête des listes aux Etats-Unis, où il est devenu un livre-culte.