A Thousand Splendid Suns
First edition cover
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| Author | Khaled Hosseini |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Riverhead Books (and Simon & Schuster audio CD) |
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Publication date
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May 22, 2007 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) and audio CD |
| Pages | 384 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | (first edition, hardcover) |
| OCLC | 85783363 |
| 813/.6 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3608.O832 T56 2007 |
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It is his second, following his bestselling 2003 debut, The Kite Runner. Mariam is an illegitimate child, and suffers from both the stigma surrounding her birth along with the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila, born a generation later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until their lives intersect and she is also forced to accept a marriage proposal from Rasheed, Mariam's husband.
Hosseini has remarked that he regards the novel as a "mother-daughter story" in contrast to The Kite Runner, which he considers a "father-son story". It continues some of the themes used in his previous work, such as the familial aspects, but focuses primarily on female characters and their roles in Afghan society.
A Thousand Splendid Suns was released on May 22, 2007, and received favorable prepublication reviews from Kirkus,Publishers Weekly,Library Journal, and Booklist, becoming a number one New York Times bestseller for fifteen weeks following its release. During its first week on the market, it sold over one million copies.Columbia Pictures purchased film rights in 2007 and confirmed intentions to create a movie adaption of the book. The first theatrical adaptation of the book premiered on February 1, 2017, at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California.
The title of the book comes from a line in the Josephine Davis translation of the poem "Kabul", by the 17th-century Iranian poet Saib Tabrizi:
In an interview, Khaled Hosseini explains, "I was searching for English translations of poems about Kabul, for use in a scene where a character bemoans leaving his beloved city, when I found this particular verse. I realized that I had found not only the right line for the scene, but also an evocative title in the phrase 'a thousand splendid suns,' which appears in the next-to-last stanza."
When asked what led him to write a novel centered on two Afghan women, Hosseini responded:
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Wikipedia