Banned Book of the Month: The Kite Runner
Cover image taken from Goodreads.
About the Author:
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat for Afghanistan, and his mother was a teacher in Kabul. He was the eldest of five children and grew up in a privileged part of Kabul. The family was relocated to Paris in 1976 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and, by the time they were ready to go back in 1980, Afghanistan had become a Soviet occupied country. The family sought asylum that year and moved to San Jose, California, where Hosseini finished high school, going on to get a degree in biology at Santa Clara University, and eventually a medical degree from the University of California, San Diego.
The Kite Runner was Hosseini’s debut novel, and it was published in 2003. His other books are A Thousand Splendid Suns, published in 2007, and And the Mountains Echoed, published in 2013. All of his books are primarily based in Afghanistan, and all of his characters are Afghan. All of his books have been on the New York Times bestseller list, with The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns being in first for multiple weeks. The Kite Runner was also turned into a movie.
Summary:
—Spoilers ahead—
The Kite Runner follows the life of a boy named Amir and his best friend Hassan, who is the son of Ali, the live-in servant at Amir’s house. Amir, Amir’s father, Ali, and Hassan all lived in Kabul before and during the beginning of the Soviet Occupation.
The first section of the book follows Amir and Hassan’s childhood together. They spent most of their time together playing, flying kites, or with Amir reading stories to Hassan. Amir had a passion for writing from a young age, and although his father didn’t support him, his father’s close friend Rahim Khan was a big supporter of him and so was Hassan. Hassan was the first one to hear Amir’s stories. Amir’s father, known as Baba, treated both Amir and Hassan the same way, even paying for Hassan to get his cleft lip fixed. This made Amir very jealous and possessive of his father’s time and affection.
Hassan was Amir’s kite runner, meaning he would catch the kites that Amir cut when they were in kite fighting competitions. In Amir’s own words, Hassan had a real talent for this; he knew where the kite would be before it ever touched the ground. One day, after Amir won a kite fighting competition, Hassan was sexually assaulted while trying to run the kite back to Amir. Amir went looking for him, and he watched it happen, but he didn’t step up and protect his friend. This put a large rift between them and sent Hassan into a mental and physical spiral. Eventually Amir framed Hassan for theft, and both Hassan and Ali both left to go live somewhere else.
Five years after Hassan and Ali leave, Afghanistan gets occupied by the Soviet Union, and Baba decides it's best to leave the country. Amir and his father leave for America in 1979, where Baba works at a gas station. Amir goes to high school and then he gets a degree in creative writing. Baba and Amir would spend their weekends reselling things at the San Jose flea market; this is where Amir meets his future wife, Soraya. Shortly after, Baba gets diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he dies just after Amir and Soraya get married.
Fifteen years later, Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan, who was living in Pakistan at that time, asking him to come visit. By this time, the Soviet Union had been kicked out by the Taliban, but this started a whole new level of terror. Amir learns that Hassan had a wife and a child and that for a short time they lived together with Rahim Khan in Amir’s old house. Rahim Khan had gone to visit someone in Pakistan when Hassan and his wife were killed by the Taliban, and their son was sent to an orphanage. Rahim Khan had called Amir to ask him to go find this child. Although Amir was very hesitant at first, eventually his guilt over what happened when they were young pushed him to go looking for Hassan’s son, Sohrab. Amir returns to Afghanistan after almost 20 years, where he finds and saves Sohrab. After heading back to Pakistan, they struggled to find a way to get Sohrab back to America, but with the help of Soraya, they were able to bring Sohrab to America.
Why it’s Banned:
The Kite Runner was deemed inappropriate because of its offensive language and sexually explicit content. It was The American Library Association's most challenged book in 2008, and it was the most banned book from 2021-2022. Many Afghan readers stated that the book didn’t show the actual nuance of the country's different ethnic groups and made some of the groups seem like oppressors and other groups the oppressed. The film was also controversial because of the sexual assault scene, and the young actors who portrayed Amir and Hassan were forced to leave Afghanistan before the movie was even released. The movie was also banned in cinemas and DVD stores in Afghanistan.
This book can be found at the Hamilton library, Pauline Haass and at the Menomonee Falls Public Library.
