The Kite Runner : Part 2 : In detail

Khaled Hosseini Biography

Khaled Hosseini was born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan, the setting of much of the action in The Kite
Runner. Hosseini and his family moved to Paris in 1976, then immigrated to the United States in 1980 as
refugees with political asylum. Hosseini's parents, a former diplomat and a teacher, settled in San Jose,California, where they subsisted on welfare until his father, working odd jobs, managed to independently support the family. Hosseini received a biology degree in 1988 from Santa Clara University and a medical degree from the University of California, San Diego in 1993. As of 2005, he is a practicing physician,specializing in internal medicine in Northern California.
Hosseini published several stories before writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, which was based on an
earlier short story of the same title. As a doctor with an active practice and many patients, Hosseini struggled
to find time to expand the story, so he wrote the novel piecemeal in the early morning hours. Hosseini
contends that treating patients made him a keen observer of people and the ways they express themselves,
both verbally and nonverbally.
In 2004, Hosseini was selected by the Young Adult Library Services Association to receive an Alex Award,
an honor given to the authors of the ten best adult books for teenagers published in the previous year. Also in
2004, he was given the Original Voices award by the Borders Group, and The Kite Runner was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.


What is kite running?

Kite-running (Gudiparan Bazi) has been a favorite pastime in Afghanistan for
the last 100 years, but there are few on the streets of Kabul that can forget the
terror of living under the Taliban regime for so many years. Under Taliban rule, if
you were caught with a kite, many times you would be beaten and the spool
would be destroyed. However, since the fall of the Taliban regime, kite-running
has again resurfaced tenfold.
Kite-running is a two-person affair, with one person called the “charka gir” and
the other called the “gudiparan baz.” The charka gir is in charge of the holding
the wooden kite spool, around which the wire, or “tar” is wound. The second
person, called the “gudiparan baz” actually is in control of the movement of the
kite in the air. Kite flyers stand on tops of buildings, fighting with kites from all
over the city. The object is to strike down the kite of your opponent with the
string of your kite, after which you will be called the winner. The strings are often
made with razor wire which gives the sharpness to cut down other kites. After an
opponent’s kite is set free, it flutters away into the wind where it is usually picked
up by the local children, who fly it the next day as their own.
Kites are made of either extremely fragile tissue paper, or heavier more durable
mylar fabric. They come in many colors, shapes, and sizes. Kites range in price
depending on the size and materials used to make the kite. For a small, simple,
child sized kite, the price starts at just a few cents. For large, elaborate, colorful
kites, many with dangling adornments, the price can cost as much as [2 to 100]
Afghanis, or $2 US.
(Quoted from “Kites for Kabul: Flying for Freedom”. Available online at
http://www.kitelife.com/archives/issue45/kabul45/index.htm)


Characters in alphabetical order
(and page when first mentioned)
Aflatoon – Amir’s dog in the U.S. (190)
Ali – Hassan’s father; servant to Baba and Amir (2)
Amir – storyteller/narrator
Assef – son of one of Baba’s friends; kid (and adult) with the
stainless-steel brass knuckles (37)
Baba - Amir’s father (2)
Farid – Amir’s driver in Afghanistan (228)
Farzani – Hassan’s wife (205)
Hassan – boyhood playmate and servant; one year
younger than Amir (2); the kite runner (52)
Kamal – friend of Assef (37); shows up again without Assef
(120, 124)
Rahim Khan - Amir’s friend and Baba’s business partner (1)
Sanaubar – Hassan’s mother; ran away soon after birth (6)
Sofia Akrami – Amir’s mother; died giving birth to him (15)
Sohrab – Hassan’s son (211)
Soraya – Amir’s wife (140)

Zamen – director of the rundown orphanage (253)

Welcome batch 2016: Language A: English Literature HL

The parts:

•Part 1: Works in translation

•• Part 2: Detailed study

•• Part 3: Literary genres

•• Part 4: Options (in which works are freely chosen)

From August to December 2014:

Part 4: Options (Free Choice by Schools)

 HOW THE LESSON WILL BE RUN:

• Pre reading : A Brief History of Afghanistan:

·         The Kite Runner: Historical Context

·         Briefly about the novel

·         Khaled Hosseini Biography

·         What is kite running?

·         New terminology pertaining to culture and character

·         How to analyse a novel from literary perspective

·         Function of expository chapter

·         Reading calendar

·         Themes

·         Characters

·         Setting

·         Plot structure

·         How to ToK The Kite Runner

·         Essential passages

·         Analyzing literary features

·         Quiz questions for exploration

·         Essay topics

·         How to hold an IOP

·         IOP titles from The Kite Runner

·         Mock IOP

Before you read the novel

The more you understand about Afghan culture, history, and geography, the more you will be able to enjoy the novel. Much of the story described in The Kite Runner takes place in Afghanistan during two time periods, the 1970's and 2001. The political climate of the country changed dramatically between those two times. Moreover, the novel describes ethnic and religious groups that are unfamiliar to many Americans. As you read about Pashtuns and Hazaras, and about Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, you will want to learn more about these groups and religious denominations.

Use the following websites to research the information needed to answer the Pre-Reading Questions:

• A Brief History of Afghanistan: http://www.afghangovernment.com/briefhistory.htm
• Afghanistan Website ( U.S. Library of Congress)
• The Internet Public Library (http://www.ipl.org)

The Kite Runner: Historical Context

The Kite Runner, set in Afghanistan and the United States from the 1970s to 2002, presents a story of

intertwined personal conflicts and tragedies against a historical background of national and cultural trauma.

The early chapters tell much about the richness of Afghan culture as experienced by the young Amir and

Hassan in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The novel's account of the culture of Kabul informs the reader about

everything from the melon sellers in the bazaar to the cosmopolitan social and intellectual lives of Kabul elite

society during the monarchy, to the traditional pastimes of Afghan children. Detailed descriptions treat the

reader to such events as a large extended-family outing to a lake and the annual winter kite tournament of

Kabul. Subsequent political developments, however, appear to curtail these relative freedoms, as first the

Soviet-backed Communist government, then the Northern Alliance, and finally the Taliban progressively

repress the activities of Afghan citizens. The reader learns the effects of the first of these developments

through first-person narration; the effects of the Northern Alliance and of Taliban rule emerge in Rahim

Khan's, Farid's, and Hassan's accounts of Afghan life in the period between the late 1980s and the early 2000s.

Starting in the early chapters of the novel, broad political events such as the revolution that overthrows the

monarchy come to form not just a background for the action, but to become prime movers of the plot. The

sound of gunfire in Chapter 5, for example, initiates a series of political shake-ups that eventually leads to the

Communist takeover of Afghanistan and drives Baba and Amir, along with many of the privileged class, into

exile. In addition, it marks an end to a period that was—despite being marred by the iniquities of the caste

system—relatively idyllic. As Amir observes, "The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know

nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born." This observation foreshadows the traumatized

condition of Amir's nephew Sohrab, born in the midst of violence and orphaned and abused by the Taliban.

The Kite Runner is one of the first works of fiction to include the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United

States within the span of its narrative. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Afghanistan was

portrayed in popular media as a country whose government allowed a terrorist organization to operate within

its borders and committed human rights abuses against its own people. Through a detailed personal narrative,

the novel re-focuses attention on Afghanistan through a different lens, correcting this narrow view of a

country which, despite its problems, has a fascinating history.

Another important historical and cultural context of the novel is the diverse and variegated world of

contemporary multicultural America, particularly in California. Hosseini, the son of a diplomat and a teacher,

left Afghanistan with his family in 1981, much like Amir. Likewise, Amir's experiences in the Afghan

immigrant community of Fremont, California, familiarly known in the San Francisco Bay Area as "Little

Kabul," may reflect the author's experiences of the area from arrival in San Jose in the 1980s. Amir's life as a

young immigrant in the multicultural space of the Bay Area illustrates the increased mixing of diverse

ethnicities in the 1980s and 1990s within U.S. popular culture.

The novel also gives a detailed account of how one ethnic group formed a cultural enclave within American

culture so that its members could help one another and preserve Afghan cultural traditions. Detailed

descriptions in the middle and late chapters give the reader a window on some cultural practices, both formal

and informal, that help define the Afghan community in Fremont. Amir's and Soraya's lives are certainly

taken up with the broader American culture. Both attend public schools and (we presume) mix with

non-Afghan students; Amir takes creative writing classes in which he must read about the experiences of a

diverse group of young writers; and Soraya has a career as a writing instructor at a community college. Still

their identities as Afghans or Afghan Americans are defined in part by the ceremonies and practices of theirfamilies and their community. The Saturday swap meets, for example, exemplify the well-documented

strategy of immigrant groups to adapt already existing institutions in the United States as ways to preserve

their cultures of origin.

Briefly about the novel:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was published in 2003. Initially published by Riverhead Books, an

imprint of Penguin, The Kite Runner was said to be the first novel written in English by an Afghan writer, and

the book appeared on many book club reading lists. The novel is set in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to

1981 and the start of the Soviet occupation, then in the Afghan community in Fremont, California from the

1980s to the early 2000s, and finally in contemporary Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.

The Kite Runner is the story of strained family relationships between a father and a son, and between two

brothers, how they deal with guilt and forgiveness, and how they weather the political and social

transformations of Afghanistan from the 1970s to 2001. The Kite Runner opens in 2001. The adult narrator,

Amir, lives in San Francisco and is contemplating his past, thinking about a boyhood friend whom he has

betrayed. The action of the story then moves backward in time to the narrator's early life in Kabul,

Afghanistan, where he is the only child of a privileged merchant. Amir's closest friend is his playmate and

servant Hassan, a poor illiterate boy who is a member of the Hazara ethnic minority. The Kite Runner, a

coming-of-age novel, deals with the themes of identity, loyalty, courage, and deception. As the protagonist Amir grows to adulthood, he must come to terms with his past wrongs and adjust to a new culture after leaving Afghanistan for the United States.

The novel sets the interpersonal drama of the characters against the backdrop of the modern history of

Afghanistan, sketching the political and economic toll of the instability of various regimes in Afghanistan;

from the end of the monarchy to the Soviet-backed government of the 1980s to the fundamentalist Taliban

government of the 1990s. The action closes soon after the fall of the Taliban and alludes to the rise of Hamid

Karzai as leader of a new Afghan government in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.